Genetic improvement strategies in buffalo.

Breeding and official selection activity in any country depends on the economic importance of the considered livestock, therefore of the products that can be obtained from it. The first step in the breeding and selection activity with regard to any dairy livestock is the milk recording of the productivity of each yielding animal. The results, when appropriately merged with the genealogy data, allow a definition of the milk genetic merit of each animal, in particular of the bull, for which we have no other milk record except the production of his progeny. The importance of animal recording for the activity of selection is well recognized all over the world and is demonstrated by the fact that in most countries such activity is at least partially financed by governments, which consider it an important means for the improvement of animal production. An international non governmental organization, the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) has been active for over thirty years in the field of promotion and standardization of animal recording. The highest proportion of milk recorded buffaloes, in fact, is found in Italy (27.8%), in Iran is 4.5 %, while in other countries the recorded buffaloes are about 1% of total dairy females (Turkey, Egypt) or less. We have high percents of recorded buffaloes in Bulgaria, Syria and Greece, where the buffalo population is disappearing. The productivity in other countries is lower than in Italy, considering that only in Italy there was a very long work of recording, selection and genetic improvement, health, feeding and livestock system rising. Also milk composition was improved in Italy in few years, with mean protein percentage from 4.4 to 4.8 and fat percentage from 7.3 to 8.1 without any selection of this character. Moreover the possibilities of genetic improvement for milk quantity and quality will be higher, if the selection pressing will be increased reducing the number of bred females. So, just now there are in Italy many females producing more than 5,000 kg milk for lactation (270 days). Therefore the selection will be directed for the improvement of the yield of mozzarella cheese, not simply for milk production, because the farm income actually is resulting first from mozzarella cheese, alter from the selling of pregnant heifers, at the last from beef (Borghese, 2004). A consistent number of recorded buffaloes is obviously found in countries with the highest presence of buffaloes (India, Pakistan and Egypt) which signifies that these countries have also taken steps towards implementing an organized milk improvement activity, on a solid scientific and technical basis.