There was a wonderfully informative article on buffalo cloning in Northern Voices Online — tag line: “Connecting Indians Globally” — a few days back. Here’s a few of the interesting tidbits that it serves up (though I haven’t yet verified the information, I should add). A buffalo has been cloned in India for the second time, this one by the name of Garima. The first survived only a few days. India is the world’s largest milk producer (15% of total global production); 55% of that is contributed by buffalo. India’s first cross-bred cow, named Jill, was produced in 1909 at the Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry Bangalore, by crossing an Ayrshire with the local Haryana breed. And so on.
Now, in such a well-informed and data-laden article, it is surprising not to hear the other side of the story as well. Why not say something about the importance of conserving, continuing to use, and improving local breeds, while all this cross-breeding and cloning is going on? Why not mention the work of the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources? After all, it will be a long time before cloned elite buffaloes are contributing to that 55%.