Artificial insemination for Anatolian buffalo
The Turkish Ministry of Agriculture has been looking at ways of improving the quality and quantity development of native bovine species in Turkey and believes it may have found a way of getting the best from its native Anatolian races.
The country’s native Anatolian races offered low meat and milk yields and lower quality raw hides. As a result, the state has been importing cattle, including Holstein, Jersey and Aberdeen Angus, for around 50 years and cross-breeding to give higher yields and better quality raw hides.
However, the ministry, in cooperation with Mustafa Kemal University and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization have implemented a project entitled ‘The development of native Anatolian buffalo using Italian artificial insemination’. The aim is that, by using Italian buffalo sperm, the quality and yield will increase.
The live population of Anatolian buffalo is estimated at approximately one million heads. In Turkey, raw, wet-salted buffalo hides are used for full vegetable-tanned leathergoods and for sole leather production.
