June 04, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1429

MUZAFFARGARH, June 3: The trains of camels are out here again in Muzaffargarh and this time not to entertain the public with their wrestling skills but to feed malnourished lands with their dung. The ship of dessert has now assumed a new role of mitigating farmers difficulties in the face of skyrocketing prices of DAP fertilisers and provides alternative fertilisers, Dawn has learnt.

DAP fertilisers is touching all-time high Rs3,000 per bag which has forced farmers to look towards alternative fertilizers like cattle dung.

A big number of camel caravans descended here are from Mandi Yazman in Bahawalpur, as, according to flock owners, drought-like situation in their areas brought their animals to starvation and they arrived in Muzaffargarh in search of new meadows.

Muhammad Bukhsh owns 350 camels and he rents out his train for an overnight stay to farmers in their fields. He charges Rs500 per acre per night from his client. He says that the dung discharge by his train overnight enriches the land with manure to compensate the shortage of imported fertilisers. He said he had arrived here in the district last year but farmers would not allow his flock to stay in their fields. Now time has changed and his camel treasure is in big demand.

He said earlier he used to give money to farmers for grazing his camels and staying in their fields and now farmers offered him Rs500 per night stay in their land.

He said he had devoted his life to the care of camels and besides selling camels, he trained fighter camels.

District Agriculture Officer Afzal Sindhu said even though camel manure was a good source of land nourishment but farmers should utilise green manures to combat growing shortage of DAP and other man-made fertilisers.

Green manure is obtained from the trunks of cotton or wheat plants which are crushed and dump in the fields to be used as alternative fertilisers. He said the government encouraged the use of alternative ways to increase yields and combat costly fertilisers.

A camel-lover, Manjhi Tanwari, said to this correspondent the government should take interest in camel care as the animal could be exported to the Middle East.

Ghulam Hassan, also camel owner, said that he sold camel milk in tons. He said the high prices of fertilisers had increased the importance of camel dung and now high rates of fuel would again revive the era of loader camels, also called the ship of desert. —Malik Tahseen Raza