For buffalo milk, the challenge is to improve the profitability record
The debate on the strengths and challenges of the supply chain at the World Buffalo Congress in Sorrento
Buffalo milk is experiencing significant growth worldwide. A boom in investment is forecast in regions such as India and Pakistan, as well as in China, Nepal, South America and the Arab countries. The buffalo is a highly productive breed that adapts effectively to different climatic conditions, and whose milk offers high nutritional value at a low cost, making it a staple of the diet in many countries grappling with hunger and difficulties in accessing food.
In this global context , Italia stands out for its profitability and its ability to develop a high value-added product from buffalo milk, such as Mozzarella di bufala campana, the first PDO from Southern Italy and one of the top five Italian dairy PDOs, with a turnover of over 500 million euros.
The global outlook
This is what has emerged in recent days from the World Buffalo Congress, which was held for the first time in Italia, in Sorrento (Naples), with over 600 delegates. “The global buffalo population,” explained Giuseppe Campanile, lecturer in Animal Production at the University of Naples Federico II, “stands at 220 million head, of which 105 million are in India alone. India and Pakistan together account for 55 per cent of the global population, partly due to religious factors. Buffalo milk is used both for direct consumption and for the production of yoghurt, kefir and various types of cheese. Production takes place across a complex network of family-run farms organised in a pyramid structure within vast cooperatives. In India, there are cooperatives with 6 million members. Other significant areas include China with 35 million head, followed by Nepal with 4 million and Brazil with 3 million. These countries, starting with China, have planned investments to increase their herds by hundreds of millions of head. In Italia, by contrast, there are 400,000 head, 80 per cent of which are located within the PDO area for Campania buffalo mozzarella.”
The potential of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana PDO
Italia is, above all, a global benchmark for profitability. Thanks to the Mozzarella PDO scheme , the price of buffalo milk is around 1.60 euros per litre, compared with 1 dollar in South America and 0.80 dollars in India. “Others look to our progress,” adds Campanile, “including in terms of business management, genomic research, animal feed and the quality characteristics of the milk.”
The main opportunities for Italian buffalo farms are linked to the introduction of precision farming and automation, which would help address labour shortages whilst improving animal welfare. Campania buffalo mozzarella, too, following its growth in recent years, has prospects for further development linked – as revealed by research from the Smart Agrifood Observatory at the Politecnico di Milano – to the introduction of artificial intelligence in farm management.
