Other agro-industrial byproducts

Supply of nutrients in the livestock ration can be maintained by using the locally available industrial byproducts, which in spite of having higher nutritional value than the crop residues are considered unconventional due to the presence of one or other incriminating factor. Such byproducts include oil cakes of neem, mahua, karanj, castor, cottonseed hulls, babool pods, salseed meal etc. To find out the potential of such byproducts, systematic research work was initiated in the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, during 1940’s, which was further continued under All India Coordinated Research Project entitled ‘Improvement of feed resources and nutrient utilization in raising animal production’ by Indian Council of Agricultural Research from 1967 onwards involving major Indian laboratories. As a result of its findings, a number of byproducts are now being used mainly by the compounded feed industry. Incorporation of unconventional byproducts in animal feed results in poor palatability. To overcome this problem, flavouring agents and sweeteners such as molasses may be added. As per an estimate, about 0.6 million tonnes (costing Rs 18,000 million) of such materials are being annually used by the feed industry in the country.

Processing methods have been developed to ameliorate the incriminating factors present in various agro-industrial byproducts as indicated in Table 8.5, but these processes methods are time consuming and appear to be uneconomical and hence are not being practiced as the incriminating factors remain in the feed after their inactivation. The best remedy for the utilization of such byproducts is to extract the incriminating factors and find out its commercial application. It not only improves the utilization of byproducts but also recover the cost of processing.

For example, gum is extracted from guar meal, which is having commercial use. During the process of gum extraction, its anti-nutritional factor i.e. anti-trypsin factor is taken care of. The resulting guar meal is free from incriminating factor and cost of processing of guar meal is recovered from the sale of guar gum. If the same analogy is applied to other abundantly available oil cakes of neem, mahua, salseed etc, their use in animal feeding will be safer and economical and it will generate employment in rural/ tribal areas. These oil cakes have a potential to be used as a source of insecticide, nematodicide, or anti-helmenthetics etc. Incorporation of neem seed cake in the ration of animals at lower level may control the problem of parasitic infection, which is wide spread in the animals and is one of the major reasons of their low productivity. It will be a good idea to incorporate neemseed cake or its active principle in urea- molasses-mineral block (UMMB) lick because presence of molasses will mask its bitter taste.

                         Byproducts             Availability (MT)      Incriminating factors

Recent reports suggest that dietary tannins at the level of 3% through Accacia nilotica (Babul) pods did not adversely affect nutrient intake and milk productivity of cows. Dietary tannins resulted in increased concentration of tannin metabolites in the milk, which has health benefits for human beings. The plant extracts of some herbs have shown a potential to reduce the methane emission as plant secondary metabolites control the protozoa population in rumen, which has a symbiotic relationship with ruminal methanogens. Saponins of some herbs such as soap nut have shown the possibilities to reduce methane emission during the course of enteric fermentation. Therefore, plant extracts can be used for this purpose to mitigate the methane emission from ruminants, which is one of the major sources of methane causing global warming.