It is calving time for one of Australia's largest buffalo farms, which is expecting to welcome up to 150 baby buffalo this year.

The Northern Territory Government's Beatrice Hill Farm runs one of the nation's largest herds of Riverine buffalo — a breed whose milk you can thank for genuine mozzarella cheese. Listen Duration: 8 minutes 33 seconds 8 m Listen Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Barry Lemcke shows ABC Rural the newest members of the Beatrice Hill buffalo herd ( Matt Brann ) Download 3.9 MB

Buffalo research officer Barry Lemcke said every morning there seemed to be a new calf on the ground.

"We control mate them so that they're born at the beginning of the wet season, so they get the best nutrition from mum," he said.

"It gives the mums time to build up their condition as well, so they're usually really fat at this time of year.

"The calves are usually fairly heavy by the time we wean in August, around 200 to 300 kilograms."

Buffalo on the farm are either impregnated the natural way, or through artificial insemination (AI).

Riverine buffalo enjoying the wet season in the Northern Territory ( ABC Rural: Matt Brann )

The semen for AI treatment gets imported from Italy - a long way from this farm on the outskirts of Darwin.

"We give the purebred Riverine's imported Italian buffalo milking semen," Mr Lemcke said.

"There's really no other place in the world where we can get buffalo semen and there not be any problems with disease.

"Italy has a very well-organised dairy buffalo system.

"It's been going for many, many years and they've got the data on all the bulls that are available, so you can look up on their system to find out which are the best bulls for whatever you're looking for."

Buffalo born on Beatrice Hill Farm are being sold to buffalo dairies across Australia.

"We're basically producing breeders for other producers [around Australia]," Mr Lemcke said.

"This herd originated from just eight animals bought in from the USA in 1995, so we started with four heifers and four bulls and now we've got over 150 purebred Riverine buffalo.

A new born Riverine buffalo on Beatrice Hill Farm, NT. ( ABC Rural: Matt Brann )

"The aim was to get to 100 head and we did that about three years ago, and that gives us the scope now to turn-off a lot more purebreds to people in the dairy industry that are looking for milking animals.

"Our herd has helped supply [animals] to all but one of the buffalo dairies in Australia."

Mr Lemcke said the aim of the NT's buffalo research program had changed over the years.

He said the dairy industry was now the main focus.

"We started off producing meat animals and we had abattoirs up here in the Northern Territory," Mr Lemcke said.

"But since 2007, when the Litchfield abattoir closed, we've had more interest, and it's been more financially viable to supply the dairy industry because the animals are worth a lot more.

"They can be worth four to eight times the value for a pregnant heifer [for dairy] compared to a beef breeder."