Waste to worth: vegetable wastes as animal feed.

Abstract The chemical composition, nutritional value and use of a number of vegetable wastes (VWs) and by-products such as baby corn, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, cucumber, jackfruit, peas, potato, sweet corn (SC), tomato, and radish leaves, among others in ruminant and monogastric diets, are presented in this publication. These products are rich in both protein and energy. Bottle gourd pulp, cabbage leaves, pea pods (PP), potato vines, pumpkin oil meal, radish leaves, snow peas, sugar beet leaves and tomato pomace have around or more than 20% crude protein (CP). The remaining VWs contain 10-19% CP, except carrot pulp, jackfruit waste, SC husk, SC cob and SC husk plus cob, which have less than 10% CP. Most of these wastes have high acceptability and palatability, and products such as sarson saag waste and PP supplemented with mineral mixture and common salt can be fed ad libitum to the livestock as complete feed. The major constraints in using these products as livestock feed are their high moisture content and presence of contaminants, mainly pesticides and pesticide residues. Drying and ensiling have been used for enhancing shelf life and making their incorporation in animal feeds easier. There is a need to monitor pesticide and pesticide residues, mycotoxins, heavy metals and antinutritional factors before using vegetable products in animal diets. Full potential of these unconventional feed resources can be realized by concerted commercial efforts. These resources are yet untapped and their efficient use will enlarge feed resource base, enhance feed availability and bring the wasted food back to human food chain.