Food and agricultural waste management is undertaken to recycling the wastes so as to reduce the ill effects of wastes on environment, health and aesthetics. The waste may be either in solid, liquid or gaseous form. The process of food and agricultural waste management varies for rural and urban areas, for municipal and industrial waste, for developed and developing nations. The management of municipal wastes is responsibility of local government while as the management of agricultural waste is the responsibility of farmers. The developed nations use various novel technologies to reduce the negative impacts of waste or use and effective management to exploit it.
The reduction of food and agricultural wastes is placed at the top of waste management hierarchies because the best means waste management is to reduce waste by not creating it in first place. The reduction of food and agricultural waste can also be achieved through the reuse of products. The reduction and reuse of wastes save natural resources, reduces generation of wastes and reduces the cost associated with food and agricultural waste disposal.
Many agricultural enterprises use large amounts of agricultural chemicals. The use of these chemicals seems to increase the cost of labor increases. With this increased uses comes the potential for surface and groundwater contamination as a result of improper storage of chemical residue, rinse water, and unused chemicals and the improper disposal of empty containers. State and local authority should be considered before planning any chemical handling system.
The process of collection, transport, disposal, recycling and monitoring of agricultural waste is called food and agricultural waste management is undertaken to recycle the food and agricultural waste so as to reduce the ill effects of wastes on environment, health and aesthetics. Various techniques are used for the management of waste which includes land-filling, incineration, anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, plasma gasification, recycling, composting. Anaerobic digestion produces bio fuel in the form of biogas. Plasma gasification results in the generation of electricity from waste. Recycling of food and agricultural waste involves the collection, sorting and reprocessing of waste into new products. Vermin composting is the preferred form of composting as it results in the formation of vermin compost called black gold due to the presence of rich nutrients and growth promoting factors in it.
The process of collection, transport, disposal, recycling and monitoring of food and agricultural wastes is called food and agricultural waste management. Food and agricultural waste management can be costly so it is important to understand the various effective, sustainable and safe means of its management. The three points ‘R s “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle have become basic tenet in food and agricultural waste management due increase in generation of wastes, increasing in processing costs and decrease in available landfill space. There should be flexibility in food and agricultural waste management systems in light of changing environmental, social and economic conditions. To optimize, evaluate, adapt and define food and agricultural waste management systems, the information and feedback can be obtained from system analysis.