North-south/west-east cooperation in agricultural biotechnologies: Some lessons from Italy presentation by Riccardo Aleandri, Council for Agricultural Research and Economical Analysis, Rome, Italy

1. North-south/west-east cooperation
in agricultural biotechnologies:
some lessons from Italy and China in buffalo
Riccardo Aleandri
Director of the Center “Policies and bioeconomy”
of the Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Rome, Italy
International Symposium on
The Role of Agricultural Biotechnologies in Sustainable Food Systems and Nutrition
February 17, 2016 - Rome, Italy
Session 3.3: Investing in biotechnology solutions through capacity development and partnerships
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2. Biotechnologies and animal breeding
 AI
 ET
 OPU
 QTL
 MAS
 GENOMIC MODEL
 …
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3. Preliminary needs in
North/South or West/East relationships
 To identify common languages
 To identify complementary goals
 To identify common interests
3

4. Buffalo population
India 105M
China 23M 12%
Pakistan 29M
Italy .4M .2%
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World 195M

5. Buffalo population
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Genetic Improvment Plan
2. Estimates of additive components
3. Selection program
1.Active population

6. Population AI MR
Italy
China
+ +
Active population
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7. Buffalo population in the world
India 105M 0
China 23M 0
Pakistan 29M 0
Italy .4M 56.812 (2013)
Population Active population
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8. The Buffalo active population in Italy
is the largest in the world!
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9. CHINA-ITALY PROJECT
GOAL:
The Italian Mediterranean Buffalo to
improve buffalo milk production in
China
The Sino-Italian Joint Research
Center on Buffalo (set up in Nanning,
Guangxi on Oct. 31, 2015
TOOL:
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10. In China private partners1. AI project
In China private partners
2. Nucleus Herds project
In Italy
and China
Joint Research
Center
3. Genomic project
CHINA-ITALY PROJECT
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11.  Semen lab
- 10,000 ÷ 20,000 frozen doses/year per bull
 ET and OPU lab to produce embryos from bull dams
 Farm to keep Mediterranean young bulls
 Computer lab to run genomic indexes
AI in China
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12. Nucleus herds in China for upgrading
Identifing nucleus herds with about
- 100,000 females
- 300,000 females
.
.
.
.
1st year
5th year
.
.
.
.
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13. Contracting nucleus herds to
 Produce only buffalo milk
 Use only AI with Mediterranean buffalo
frozen semen
 Upgrade all buffaloes to pure Mediterranean
breed
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14. GENOMIC PROJECT IN ITALY
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 Genotyping a reference population of 3000 milk recorded females
in 1st
year and 500 milk recorded females each year of pure
Mediterranean buffalo
 Computing allelic substitution values for genomic indexing of pure
Mediterranean buffaloes
 Setting up a procedure to compute the genomic
index for AI pure Mediterranean bulls operating
in China

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THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION