Buffalo genome decoding: Ensuring nutrition and food security

Livestock like buffaloes, cows, goats, fowl, duck etc., plays an important role in reducing rural poverty. It provides the lifeline for approximately 600 million of the 900 million rural poor in the world today either as a source of income or food and fibre for their sustenance, traction, organic fertiliser etc.
Cattle including buffaloes provide a significant percentage of the traction power for tillage and rural transport, 10 per cent of the fertiliser and 25 per cent of fuel in Bangladesh. They also contribute to 7 per cent of the export earnings. Livestock furthermore meets approximately 11 per cent of the human requirement of protein and function as a critical cash reserve and a reliable flow of cash for many marginal or landless farmers, who either grow crops or sell labour for subsistence living. The contribution of livestock to the GDP (gross domestic product) is 3.96 per cent. However, when the indirect benefits of draught power and cow dung used as fuel and fertiliser are added to this, the contributions of the livestock sector will double.

Buffaloes, also known as 'Asian Animals', play an important role in farmers' economic life, as an integral part of farming in Bangladesh. Domestication of buffaloes as recorded in ancient writings and sculptures suggests buffaloes were in service of man as early as in 2500-2100 B.C. Despite their important role in the national economy and their outstanding production potentials, these animals are most neglected in Bangladesh.
Buffaloes are known as "Black Gold" due to their contribution to the economy. They are being reared for milk, meat, hide and bone all over the world. In particular, it could provide more than 5 per cent of the world's milk supply and 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the farm power in South Asia including Bangladesh.
Buffaloes in Bangladesh can be classified into several categories: indigenous buffaloes that are found in the coastal and marshy areas of the country, and buffaloes that migrated from India and Myanmar and are found in the sugarcane producing belt of the country alongside other types. A number of buffalo species crossbred between swamp and river-types are also found in the coastal areas. In rural Bangladesh, buffaloes are raised mainly to provide draught power in crop production. The feed resource base for these buffaloes includes crop residues, household waste, tree fodder, roots and tuber, grain byproducts and anything edible found in the immediate environment.
Domestic species of buffaloes occupy an important position in animal agriculture of Bangladesh. Like other developing countries, the tradition of using buffaloes in production varies widely in accordance with climate, soil and socioeconomic opportunities in Bangladesh.  They may be grouped into five populations on the basis of their history of domestication, distribution and morphology. These are (i) Indigenous buffaloes in the eastern part, (ii) indigenous buffaloes in the western part, (iii) indigenous buffaloes in the central part, (iv) indigenous buffaloes in the southern part, and (v) exotic breed.
Buffaloes are mostly concentrated in agro-ecological zones viz., sugarcane belt, hilly region, coastal areas and marshy lands. In the Brahmaputra-Jamuna flood plain area, dairy buffaloes are found along the riverside villages in Rangpur, Bogra, Jamalpur and Mymensingh districts. They are also found along the coastal areas of Noakhali, Feni, Laxmipur, Bhola, Patuakhali and Borguna districts. Draught buffaloes are found in sugarcane belts and forest areas like those in Jamalpur and Modhupur.
Eastern indigenous buffaloes are found in greater Sylhet and Chittagong. They are well adapted to the swamp soil of coastal and marshy land of these areas. They represent about 39 per cent of the total buffalo population of the country. Their body coat is usually gray and has crescent horns. Most of the buffaloes have chevrons and white stocking.
Western indigenous buffaloes of this group constitute about 41 per cent of the total buffalo population. Their coat is usually black and horns are curly. Some animals have the brown coat colour.
Central indigenous buffaloes are found in the sandy islands of the rivers Brahmaputra and Jamuna in the central part of the country. Their morphological characteristics are almost similar to those of the western part. The utility and management practices are the main difference between these buffaloes with those of the western part of the country. They are kept absolutely for dairy purposes.
Southern indigenous buffaloes found in the coastal areas of the country's southern part are mainly those crossbred between the indigenous species and the Nilli-Ravi species imported from Pakistan. The crossbreeding started in 1960s and it is still going on. The Exotic Nilli-Ravi breeds were first imported in the country from Pakistan in 1960s to supply bulls to the farmers in coastal areas of the country's southern part of the country for crossbreeding.
The water buffalo species (Bubalus bubalis) was not available in Bangladesh. The water buffalo species is a sub-genus of the genus Bos Bubalinae of mainland Asia. The domestic animals are of great economic significance in tropical and sub-tropical parts of Asia. It is also found in south eastern Europe, Egypt and on a small scale in Central American states and Brazil.
A sound breeding programme to improve genotype of these indigenous buffaloes through appropriate breeding is needed. Shortage of breeding bulls or non-availability of artificial insemination facilities in villages are also a major problem.
The livestock development is still at a rudimentary stage in the application of scientific methods of breeding in Bangladesh. Lack of appropriate national breeding policy, use of inappropriate breeds, weak infrastructure (human capacity, national service delivery, breeding farms), and limited technical knowledge also constrain development of improved breeds.
Unplanned and sporadic attempts that were made at breed improvement of various species failed, because the initiatives were not based on thorough breed/ genotype testing results, well-thought out and sound breeding goals, breeding criteria, animal recording systems, animal evaluation procedures, and animal selection and mating plans. There is, however, enthusiasm for applying breeds and breeding interventions to enhance livestock performance.
The Lal Teer Livestock Limited, a Bangladesh company, based on a hybrid research programme, and China's Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), the world's largest genomics organisation, jointly announced on January 24, 2014 that they had completed the genome sequencing of water buffalo and the bioinformatics analysis. Genome sequencing allows scientists to identify and understand how genes work together for a plant's or animal's various features like growth, development and maintenance. This also enables them to manipulate the genes and enhance, add or reduce certain features of the plant or the animal.
The outstanding work lays an important foundation for molecular breeding of water buffaloes and sheds new light on the understanding of its origin and domestication process. This will now lay the foundation of ensuring nutrition and food security in Bangladesh and other developing countries.
It may be recalled that Bangladeshi scientist Maqsudul Alam, a professor of the University of Hawaii, decoded the genome of papaya in the US, then a rubber plant was decoded in Malaysia and jute in Bangladesh.
The newly-developed genomic analysis will significantly contribute to an increase in production of milk, meat, disease resistance in the case of buffaloes. Such qualitative rather than quantitative development of buffalo for a parallel increase in productivity can play a significant role in ensuring nutrition, employment and poverty alleviation.
The first ever Human Genome Project was declared in 2003 and till date genomes of about 25 species of both plants and animals have been decoded only. Bangladesh has got scientists and technology for genome decoding with proven track records. This private sector-led research is a landmark achievement.
The writer is a legal                               economist, pursuing PhD.  shah@banglachemical.com