Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste
In Canada, approximately 11.2 million metric tons of avoidable food waste (FW) is produced per year. Preservation of a greater proportion of this FW for use as livestock feed would have significant environmental and socioeconomic benefits. Therefore, this study blended discarded fruits, vegetables,...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Agriculture |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/122 |
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| author | Vicky Garcia Rodriguez Layton Vandestroet Vinura C. Abeysekara Kim Ominski Emmanuel W. Bumunang Tim McAllister Stephanie Terry Luis Alberto Miranda-Romero Kim Stanford |
| author_facet | Vicky Garcia Rodriguez Layton Vandestroet Vinura C. Abeysekara Kim Ominski Emmanuel W. Bumunang Tim McAllister Stephanie Terry Luis Alberto Miranda-Romero Kim Stanford |
| author_sort | Vicky Garcia Rodriguez |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In Canada, approximately 11.2 million metric tons of avoidable food waste (FW) is produced per year. Preservation of a greater proportion of this FW for use as livestock feed would have significant environmental and socioeconomic benefits. Therefore, this study blended discarded fruits, vegetables, and bakery products from grocery stores into silage to assess the ability to preserve their nutritional value and contribute to the feed supply. Two treatments for reducing the water content of FW were evaluated, sun-dried (SD) and passive-dried (PD), and compared to control (C) using laboratory mini-silos over 60 days of ensiling. Although dry matter (DM) was increased by 1–5% for PD and SD, respectively, up to 41.9% of bread products were required to produce a targeted silage DM of 38%. All mature silages were high in crude protein (15.2 to 15.7%), crude fat (6.0 to 6.3%), sodium (0.48 to 0.52%), and sugars (0.95 to 1.53%) and were low in neutral detergent fiber (6.2 to 7.6%) as compared to traditional silages used as livestock feed. Mold and other signs of spoilage were visible on FW, but mycophenolic acid was the only mycotoxin above the limit of detection in material prior to ensiling. Plate counts of molds and yeasts declined (<i>p</i> < 0.001) by 5–7 log colony-forming units (CFU) over 60 days of fermentation and were not detected in mature silage. All silages were aerobically stable over 20 days. This study indicates that FW can produce good-quality silage but approaches other than SD and PD are required for increasing silage DM as insufficient bread products may be available for this purpose in all batches of FW. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T10:00:14Z |
| format | Article |
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| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-0472 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T10:00:14Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Agriculture |
| spelling | doaj.art-ce7cb5e101d54145aff70f8ce1de88662024-01-29T13:40:32ZengMDPI AGAgriculture2077-04722024-01-0114112210.3390/agriculture14010122Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food WasteVicky Garcia Rodriguez0Layton Vandestroet1Vinura C. Abeysekara2Kim Ominski3Emmanuel W. Bumunang4Tim McAllister5Stephanie Terry6Luis Alberto Miranda-Romero7Kim Stanford8Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, CanadaDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, CanadaDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, CanadaDepartment of Animal Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, CanadaDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, CanadaAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lethbridge Research and Development Center, Lethbridge, AB T1J 4B1, CanadaAgriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lethbridge Research and Development Center, Lethbridge, AB T1J 4B1, CanadaDepartamento de Zootecnia, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Texcoco 56230, MexicoDepartment of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB T1K 3M4, CanadaIn Canada, approximately 11.2 million metric tons of avoidable food waste (FW) is produced per year. Preservation of a greater proportion of this FW for use as livestock feed would have significant environmental and socioeconomic benefits. Therefore, this study blended discarded fruits, vegetables, and bakery products from grocery stores into silage to assess the ability to preserve their nutritional value and contribute to the feed supply. Two treatments for reducing the water content of FW were evaluated, sun-dried (SD) and passive-dried (PD), and compared to control (C) using laboratory mini-silos over 60 days of ensiling. Although dry matter (DM) was increased by 1–5% for PD and SD, respectively, up to 41.9% of bread products were required to produce a targeted silage DM of 38%. All mature silages were high in crude protein (15.2 to 15.7%), crude fat (6.0 to 6.3%), sodium (0.48 to 0.52%), and sugars (0.95 to 1.53%) and were low in neutral detergent fiber (6.2 to 7.6%) as compared to traditional silages used as livestock feed. Mold and other signs of spoilage were visible on FW, but mycophenolic acid was the only mycotoxin above the limit of detection in material prior to ensiling. Plate counts of molds and yeasts declined (<i>p</i> < 0.001) by 5–7 log colony-forming units (CFU) over 60 days of fermentation and were not detected in mature silage. All silages were aerobically stable over 20 days. This study indicates that FW can produce good-quality silage but approaches other than SD and PD are required for increasing silage DM as insufficient bread products may be available for this purpose in all batches of FW.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/122silagefood wastelivestock feedfruitvegetablesbread |
| spellingShingle | Vicky Garcia Rodriguez Layton Vandestroet Vinura C. Abeysekara Kim Ominski Emmanuel W. Bumunang Tim McAllister Stephanie Terry Luis Alberto Miranda-Romero Kim Stanford Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste Agriculture silage food waste livestock feed fruit vegetables bread |
| title | Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste |
| title_full | Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste |
| title_fullStr | Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste |
| title_full_unstemmed | Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste |
| title_short | Optimizing Silage Strategies for Sustainable Livestock Feed: Preserving Retail Food Waste |
| title_sort | optimizing silage strategies for sustainable livestock feed preserving retail food waste |
| topic | silage food waste livestock feed fruit vegetables bread |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/1/122 |
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