David Galligan & Dipti Pitta, School of Veterinary Medicine Executive Dairy Management Training Program (EDMTP) and Center of Dairy Excellence

Dairy and water buffalo production is vital to the continued economic development in India and is certainly a rich part of the countries cultural heritage. It is a socially important industry in that generations of the rural poor have been engaged in dairy production. While India has the largest number of dairy and water buffaloes, it has the lowest animal yield (milk/d). The strategy of meeting the growing societal demand for milk products, by further increasing animal numbers is not sustainable on an economic or environmental basis. Fundamentally, at low yields of production, more resources (water, feed, land) are used per kilogram of milk production. A cadre of veterinary professionals, trained in the latest concepts of production medicine is desperately needed to more fully utilize existing resources and improve animal yield to sustainable levels of production. Production medicine strategies must be culturally acceptable to the people of India and achieve yield efficiencies that are competitive on the global market. The University of Pennsylvania, School of Veterinary Medicine has a long established history in improving dairy production efficiency and currently works with some of the highest producing herds in the US and other countries. Through this collaborative partnership, our vision is to establish a Center of Dairy Excellence in India fueled by trained resources and infrastructure to benefit marginal farmers by improving productivity of dairy cows.