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Agricultural waste

Agricultural waste are plant residues from agriculture. These waste streams originate from arable land and horticulture. Agricultural waste are all parts of crops that are not used for human or animal food. Crop residues consist mainly of stems, branches (in pruning), and leaves. It is estimated that, on average, 80% of the plant of such crops consists of agricultural waste.

The four most commonly grown agricultural crops worldwide are sugarcane, maize, cereals and rice. The total weight of all these crops is more than 16,500 billion kilograms per year. Since 80% of this consists of agricultural waste, many tens of thousands of billions of kilograms of agricultural waste remain worldwide. Some 700 million tonnes of agricultural waste is produced annually by the EU.

Agricultural waste consists mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Agricultural waste is poorly digestible and in unprocessed form not widely suitable as animal feed.

Sometimes, agricultural waste is burnt, either as biomass in power plants or simply on land. Burning agricultural waste on land is called stubble burning and is still common in countries like China and India where a third of the world's population lives. Then, instead of being reused to make new products, valuable substances in agricultural waste are turned into CO2, smog, particulate matter and ash.

Today, burning of agricultural waste is increasingly banned and pruning biomass is used for applications, including woodchipper for bedding soils. Three categories of substances are mainly extracted from agricultural waste: proteins, materials containing cellulose and bioactive substances such as essential oils and carotenoids. The increasing ability to isolate such valuable substances in a pure form increases the economic value of agricultural waste.

The world's population and livestock size is growing and that is where the rising demand for food comes from. The average European is expected to consume 165 grams of meat per person daily. People around the world consume an average of 75 pounds of meat per person per year. Global meat consumption has more than doubled since 1990. Producing 1 kg (2.2 lb) of beef requires an average of 25 kg (55 lb) of crop. The production of all this food also results in more and more agricultural waste.

In large quantities, agricultural waste can have a negative impact on the environment and habitat, for example through greenhouse gas emissions, the creation of unpleasant odours, and toxic liquids that can infiltrate water sources.

The frequent and large-scale burning of agricultural waste also has negative health impacts on people who are exposed to toxic smog through the fires. Particularly in early autumn, large-scale burning of agricultural wastes worldwide results in frequent smog.

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