Biofuel co-products as livestock feed - Opportunities and challenges

Climate change and predicted shortages of fossil fuels present majorchallenges. Currently, biofuel production is from agricultural crops grownprimarily on arable land. Conflict with the traditional use of arable land,itself a limited resource, to produce food and animal feed must be avoidedand economic sustainability assured. At present cereals, especiallymaize and wheat, and sugar cane are used for ethanol production, withsoybean, oil palm and rapeseed for biodiesel production.The expanding transport industry requires increasing amounts of biofuels,and an increasing market for co-products has generated a need fornew feedstocks. Cellulosic material, often available from sub-prime landwith minimal inputs, and other non-conventional sources are being investigated.Before being used as feeds, some seeds and cakes will requiredetoxification. The contribution of micro-algae, production of which canbe achieved in coastal waters, is likely to grow in importance. These developmentsare mirrored the broadening of the animal species receiving theco-products, from ruminants, especially cattle, and pigs to poultry andfish (aquaculture). Further developments include enhancement of the useof existing co-products and the introduction of new ones.This publication collates, discusses and summarizes state-of-the-artknowledge on the use as livestock feed and future availability of co-productsfrom the biofuels industry. The levels at which the co-products couldbe safely used in livestock diets are also presented. Throughout the book,gaps in knowledge and research topics needed to address them havebeen identified. These include standardization of product quality to assistration formulation; testing of new products; development of detoxificationprocedures; research on micro-algae; and life cycle analysis linked totraditional nutritional appraisal.This publication covers a wide array of co-products and is a timely contribution,as people's aspirations are rising, evident from the increasingdemand for livestock products and an ever greater reliance on transport,coupled with the challenge of maintaining agricultural production whenfaced with global warming. We hope that the information here synthesizedwill be useful to policy-makers, researchers, the feed industry,science managers and NGOs, supporting them in making information-baseddecisions on issues such as food-feed-fuel competition. Hopefullyit will help confront the emerging challenges of global warming, inaddition to making efficient use as livestock feed of a wide range ofcurrently available and future co-products from the biofuel industry.ISBN 978-92-5-107299-89 7 8 9 2 5 1 0 7 2 9 9 8I3009E/1/07.12