An introduction to agricultural and fishery wastes

The term agricultural and fishery waste is broadly used to describe waste material generated from various farming and fishery operations. These activities include livestock cultivation, dairy farming, poultry egg production, wild fish harvest and aquaculture, as well as fruits and vegetable farming. Agricultural and fishery wastes occur in several forms as solids, liquids, or slurries; and they constitute a significant proportion of the global agricultural and fishery harvest. This chapter presents a general overview of waste generated by the agricultural and fishery sectors, and some of the ways in which they are utilized. The disposal of these wastes by traditional methods poses human safety and serious environmental health problems. Part of the solution to alleviating world hunger would be more efficient transformation of the abundant waste generated from agricultural and fishery harvesting/processing into high value-added byproducts of commercial relevance; instead of producing more foodstuff to generate more waste.