Agri-Phoenix Feature: Yasmin

Name: Yasmin
Age: 29
Place: Brisbane

I currently spearhead the PR, Marketing and Social Media of QCamel; a family owned and operated Camel Dairy. And that family… is my family. Safe to say, I grew up just a little embarrassed that my parents are camel farmers, and my mum especially, is some level of camel mad. However despite my own embarrassment and a seemingly bad reputation, it can’t be denied that camels are in fact loving & lovable animals, and frankly, we love our camels.

QCamel is an Australian Certified Organic Camel Dairy, producing camel milk, cheese, yoghurt, powdered milk, chocolate and even skincare. Everything we do starts from the ground up. Looking after the land (a low stress operation), looking after our animals from before birth, and making sure everything is utilised to reduce wastage. We achieve this by using ancient farming methods, whereby we work in partnership with our animals and care for them as intelligent & emotional beings - rather than as means of production. Through this, we hope to set an example of ethical animal production and sustainability.

This has been an incredibly important piece of my part in the business; keeping the business in step with issues that the market needs addressed, whilst ensuring the physical and emotional health of the camels is at the heart of our business. In fact, the skincare range was initially developed to tackle my own skincare problems. With fresh camel milk as a base product, utilisation of native Australian Botanicals and essential oils that also heal the skin, QCamel Skincare will launch into Singapore in September 2020. Capitalising on and supporting clean, green Australia. 

It may come as a surprise, however camels are incredibly kind on the land. For example, their padded feet help stop soil erosion, reducing the amount of soil in the waterways, meaning there is no herbicide or pesticide runoff from QCamel. They produce less methane therefore contributing less to global warming, their unique gut enzyme transfers through the water source to increase cattle weight, their milk is an amazing gut product and even their poo can be used as a fantastic organic matter for farmers! In addition to this, camels are high browsers, eating weeds and not stripping the land; encouraging the production of native flora. They are perfectly suited to the Australian climate and can be a sustainably preferential alternative to some farming. 

I guess at the end of the day  it’s pretty funny to have parents that are camel farmers, and more so that they chose to make me the face of the business, but hey, I’m on a milk bottle in a good way, and not a missing person!