Rules block nomads' path to prosperity via camel cheese

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania - Herd boys tug at camels' udders, loosing the raw material for a unique, creamy cheese this desert nation's growers hope to place alongside Roquefort and cheddar on the world's crackers.

If foreigners bite, camel cheese exports could put sorely needed cash in the robes of this West African nation's nomads, helping them modernize herding practices.

But there are hurdles: European Union and American import and health regulations demand costly testing that impoverished Mauritania, like most African nations, is unable to provide.

Nancy Abeiderrahmane, the British founder of Tiviski SARL, touted as the world's only camel cheese factory, has waged a decades-long campaign to export the milk and cheese of camels.

When Abeiderrahmane moved to Mauritania in 1970, many of the country's 2.9-million people lived as herdsmen, but were increasingly consuming imported milk and other processed foods.

"I thought it was absurd that they had all of these dairy animals and were importing all of this ultrapasteurized milk," the 56-year-old Briton says.

So, with $250,000, she launched her company in 1987. It started with packaged camel milk, then quickly branched into yogurt and creme fraiche. Tiviski now boasts 240 employees, a gleaming factory and 2002 sales of $5-million - only a tiny fraction from camel cheese.

Camel milk doesn't curdle naturally, making cheese production difficult. But by 1994, with the help of a French professor, Abeiderrahmane had developed a method for making camel cheese, which tastes similar to goat cheese, but spreads and looks more like Brie or Camembert.

With little idea of international trade regulations, she traveled to Europe, finding interest from high-end emporiums, including Paris' Fauchon and Harrods of London, she says.

But trade regulators in Brussels, the EU headquarters, said the cheese contravened import rules.

"At first they said it wasn't milk, because it wasn't the secretion of cows, sheep, ewes or buffalos" as defined by EU laws, Abeiderrahmane says, although that hurdle fell to her lobbying efforts.

But bigger obstacles remained: Mauritania has yet to show it has eradicated foot and mouth disease, which has swept Europe in recent years and which the United States also guards against.

It also lacks testing facilities to prove its products are safe for human consumption.

"It may take another seven or eight or nine years," Abeiderrahmane concedes.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright