The buffalo species (Bubalus bubalis) is crucial for the global economy, supplying high-nutritional-value animal proteins vital for children’s growth. These animals efficiently convert fiber into energy and thrive in various harsh environments, from frigid climates to hot, humid areas, including wetlands. They produce milk and meat while supporting the sustainability of ecosystems that other ruminants cannot inhabit. Buffalo offers a unique opportunity to supply resources for both rural communities and larger farms located in specific regions, such as marshlands and humid savannahs. They also thrive on extensive pastures and family farms, thus preserving biodiversity, habitats, and cultural practices. Intensive farming brings distinct challenges and is often criticized for its negative effects on climate change. To counter these impacts, multiple strategies have been researched and implemented. These include enhancing livestock genetics, adopting sustainable agricultural practices, optimizing local feed resources (including by-products), managing manure (with an emphasis on renewable energy), and improving animal health and welfare. This review explores various buffalo farming system applications in different global contexts. It is based on the hypothesis that the adaptable traits of buffalo, as well as the environmental and economic challenges that must be addressed for sustainability, are the key factors in determining the viability of such enterprises.

The domestic buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) plays a strategic role in the world for the economy and society. 203.9 million heads on the planet represent this species and produce 137 million tons of milk and 4.3 million tons of meat (+18.7% and +8.2% increase from 2015 to 2021, respectively). Buffalo products are essential for the human requirements of proteins of high nutritional value. These requirements will increase rapidly in the future with the growth of the human population. Therefore, the buffalo has and will have more of a strategic role in Governments’ economic programs in many countries. The buffalo is a long-living ruminant with a high capacity to convert fiber into energy and adapt in complex areas such as marshlands, Iraq, or Bangladesh, or in hot and humid climates where other ruminants cannot survive. Buffalo is a social and family animal in small villages in Southeast Asia, where it is used mainly in the rice fields as a draught animal producing milk essential for the children’s nutrition, meat, leather, manure, horns, and bones. Thanks to its great adaptability, buffalo can be bred both in intensive and extensive systems, as in South American countries where natural pastures are highly available. In this paper, the contributions of local breeds and cosmopolitan dairy breeds to sustain protein production, maintain the land’s biodiversity, and sustain the livelihood of populations are reported according to the different farming systems.

While considered as hard milkers, both buffaloes and camels are milked with equipment destined for dairy cows based on external morphological similarities with this species. This work aimed to study similarities and differences in milkability traits between Mediterranean buffaloes and Maghrebi she-camels and to evaluate the effect of parity and lactation stage. A total of 422 milk flow curves recorded with an electronic milkmeter (Lactocorder^®) for both species were accessed. Milking characteristics including milk yield per milking, peak milk flow, average milk flow, duration of the main milking phase, duration of total milking, duration of various phases of milk flow, lag time and time to milk ejection, stripping yield, overmilking time and incidence of bimodal milk flow curves were evaluated for both species. Results showed that the values of milk yield per milking, duration of the main milking phase and duration of total milking were higher in buffaloes (3.98 ± 0.10 kg; 4.07 ± 0.11 min; 9.89 ± 0.21 min, respectively) compared to camels (3.51 ± 0.08 kg; 3.05 ± 0.09 min; 3.76 ± 0.09 min, respectively). However, camels had significantly higher peak and average milk flow (2.45 ± 0.07 kg/min and 1.16 ± 0.03 kg/min, respectively). Camels took significantly less time for milk ejection to occur. Only 15.49% of recorded curves were bimodal in buffaloes while 34.93% of bimodal curves were recorded for camels. Overmilking was significantly higher in buffaloes (3.64 ± 0.21 min vs. 0.29 ± 0.02 min). Parity and lactation stage had a significant effect on most studied milking traits suggesting the need for some particular practices with primiparous animals and animals at different levels of lactation for both species.

Buffaloes are characterized by longer teats and teat canals and stronger muscular resistance of the teat wall than cattle; it is necessary to have a high vacuum level to open the teat canal and begin milk ejection. In buffalo milking management, milk yield, and flow profiles are essential parameters to record and evaluate. The milking machine is a critical point, and the characteristics of the milking vacuum and the pulsation rate are closely related to milk flow observations. In Italy, the most used vacuum levels are 44-46 kPa (range 40-53 kPa). The data on the milkability traits of the Mediterranean Italian breed made it possible to classify eight different types of milk flow curves due to anatomical, physiological, and management differences. This study aims to evaluate the main factors influencing milkability in dairy buffaloes. The results suggest the detachment of the milking cluster to reduce the decreasing and blind phases with the following advantages: reduction of the total milking time and consequently of the worker's time, improvement of the farmer's profitability and milk quality through decreasing the incidence of mastitis. Milk ability is influenced by physiological, sanitary, management, and genetic factors. In Mediterranean Italian buffaloes milked with the Automatic Milking System (AMS), a considerable variation in milk ejection and, consequently, in the milk flow curve was found compared to the conventional one, with better pre-stimulation, independent milk ejection for each teat, optimal milking of all quarters. In conclusion, continuous milkability monitoring will help optimize milking practices by reducing labor time and increasing farmers’ income through better milk quality. In addition, the identification of buffaloes with desirable types of milk flow curves could be helpful for buffalo breeders’ associations to address farmer management and to define potential new breeding objectives.

Milk flow dynamics during mechanical milking are strongly influenced by species-specific mammary anatomy, milk partitioning between cisternal and alveolar compartments, and milking management. The present study aimed to compare milkability traits across the main dairy species reared in central Italy using a large dataset collected over 20 years. A total of 7315 animals were included: dairy cows (1103), buffaloes (2870), goats (2399), sheep (754), and donkeys (189). Milk flow curves were recorded using a portable Lactocorder^® device. The following traits were analyzed: milk yield (MY), lag time (LT), milk ejection time (MET), total milking time (TMT), peak flow rate (PFR), average flow rate (AFR), plateau phase (PL), bimodal phase (BM), and bimodality incidence (Bimo). Marked interspecific differences emerged. Dairy cows showed the highest MY and PFR, with bimodality occurring in 23.7% of curves. Buffaloes exhibited lower flow rates, prolonged LT, and extended TMT, reflecting their strong dependence on oxytocin-mediated alveolar milk ejection. Sheep demonstrated short milking times and low bimodality (13.5%), consistent with their large cisternal milk fraction. Goats displayed breed-dependent variability, with specialized dairy breeds showing higher PFR and longer TMT. Donkeys produced low milk volumes but exhibited rapid and efficient milk flow, with the lowest incidence of bimodality (7.4%). Overall, milk flow patterns reflected species-specific udder morphology and physiological mechanisms of milk ejection. Although this field-based study faces inherent limitations in environmental and protocol standardization across farms, the resulting long-term dataset remains highly representative. These findings highlight the importance of tailoring milking machine settings and prestimulation protocols to species and breed characteristics to optimize milking efficiency, labor management, and animal welfare.