It's the buffalo more than the cow that has ensured India stays on top of the world milk pail, ahead of the US and China. Now, it is time for the Super Buffalo.

With 54 per cent of India’s annual milk production of around 100 million tonnes or 15 per cent of the world milk production coming from it, and with a fat content of over 8 per cent, double that of the cow, the Indian buffalo is attracting the attention of the scientific community like never before. In the making is genetic mapping of characteristics that will help evolve the super buffalo.

The National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP), with World Bank funding, will study 10 male buffaloes and 5,000 female buffaloes to identify a clutch of genetic markers that will lead to increased milk productivity. While it will take 100 years at the current rate of genetic progress for the Indian buffalo’s productivity to be doubled, by identifying and improving on the specific genetic markers, researchers hope to bring the lead time down by almost half, to 50-60 years. That’s a gain of at least 40 years.

The National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) research with World Bank funding is seeking to study the 10 bull buffaloes and 5,000 female buffaloes they have bred, to an effort to identify a clutch of genetic markers that will lead to increased productivity of milk by close to two per cent annually as against one per cent now.

Though buffalo milk production in the country has increased more than four-fold in the last four decades, only 50 per cent of the rise can be credited to increased productivity.

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