Landless animal and poultry production prospects: an overview on feeding and sustainability with special reference to fruit and vegetable wastes (FVWs)

Abstract

To overcome malnutrition and hunger, people need to be fed well, for which they need required quantities of animal source foods (ASFs) like milk, meat, fish and eggs. This is often difficult, due to feed and fodder scarcity especially in developing countries like India. The scarcity is more acute in landless animal and poultry production. Studies indicate potential of using fruit and vegetable wastes (FVWs) as feed, citing its nutritional value. On the other hand, FVWs are a burden and threat to environment. Unexplored areas of FVW research need to be studied for neutralizing threat by processing and recycling FVWs into animal and poultry feed. This paper gives an overview of the potential of FVWs as animal and poultry feed. Also, it describes the way forward and strategies to confront the constraints and challenges, highlights social marketing on waste disposal with special reference to FVWs and emphasizes collaborative involvement of stakeholders involved in fruit and vegetable value chain. As animals and poultry do directly and indirectly contribute to many of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), farmers and stakeholders of fruit and vegetable value chain need to be intervened with strategic extension and research initiatives to propagate and utilize the potential of FVWs as animal and poultry feed.