Eugenia Saini is currently FONTAGRO’s Executive Secretary. FONTAGRO is the Regional Fund for Agricultural Technology. She leads the investment fund and a portfolio of 70 international operations related to science, technology, and innovation for the Latin America and the Caribbean region. She is from Argentina and is an agronomist by training. She holds a doctorate in agricultural sciences, specializing in total factor productivity analysis. One of her seminal works in this field was the estimation of 120 years of TFP for the agricultural sector in Argentina. She is also a National Public Accountant and holds an MS in Food and Agribusiness and an MS in Applied Economics, both from Universidad de Buenos Aires. She has worked in the private and public sectors, both nationally and internationally, especially in multilateral banks. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at Cornell University and, more recently, with the Abshire-Inamori Leadership Academy (AILA) Scholarship at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Productivity for Sustainable Milk Production
India is already the world’s largest fresh dairy producer, but it will need to increase its annual milk production by 56 million tons in the next 10 years to meet domestic demand.
India already has 90 million dairy cows and buffalo, but their milk productivity is very low. Dairy cows produce an average of 14,000 hectograms per animal and buffalo produce 19,000 hectograms. By contrast, the U.S. has just 9.2 million dairy cows, but each of them produces an average of 101,000 hectograms per animal.
Simply adding more animals to meet India’s milk demand is environmentally, economically and socially unsustainable. Increasing the milk productivity of the animals through improved genetics, feed and animal care practices would help meet demand while lowering the climate impact of dairy production in a more sustainable way.
