Thirteen countries will participate in a conference from April 7 to 9 in Riyadh to look at changing the genetic structure of camels to improve milk and meat yields.

“The three-day conference will focus on ways to improve the performance of camels based mainly on genetic tools,” a spokesman for the Riyadh-based Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said.

International experts on camels have been invited to present new techniques for implementing a program for camels.

In December 2011, a national workshop on camel biodiversity was held in the Saudi capital with the help of two international experts. On that occasion, it was concluded that there was a need for further studies on camels.

The conference will be held as part of the technical cooperation program between the Ministry of Agriculture and the FAO.

The conference topics will include camel farming systems, new opportunities offered by genomic selection, genomic tools developed in large camels, biotechnologies, systems performance control at camel farms, and development of genomic tools to determine the structure and function of camel genomes.

The expected output will be a working plan for the Conservation and Genetic Improvement of Camels, which is a flagship project of ministry.

The spokesman said the conference would be an important step to build an international consortium on camels, which was decided during a meeting in Vienna in February 2013.

He said the fourth International Conference of the International Society of Camel Research and Development (ISOCARD) would be held in June 2015 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

“A special training workshop will be organized on camel genetics with the aim of discussing the building of such a consortium with the long-term goal of sustainable genomic selection in camels,” he said.

Emphasizing the importance of the conference, he said: “Despite a great deal of research, the production of camel milk and meat is low and does not meet consumer demand.”

The participating countries include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria.