**2. Types of agricultural biowastes**

Farm residues can be broadly divided into crop residues, and wastes from livestock and aquaculture depending on the activities carried out. Field crop residues are plant parts left over in the field without much attention unless otherwise is immediately followed by a succeeding crop. Crop residues can be put under


#### **Table 1.**

*Chemical composition of agri-industrial wastes [7].*

*Sustainable Biowaste Management in Cereal Systems: A Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97308*

agricultural and agri-industrial categories. Agricultural residues remaining after threshing and separation of the economic plant part(s) can be of (a) processed residues such as husks and hay and (b) field crop residues such as stalks and stubbles. Husk and hay are often left over in the crop field due to engagement of crop combined harvesters and axial flow threshers. Sometimes, the distance between crop field and farm house plays a decisive role in stacking of hay and husk in the crop field after threshing. That apart, farm mechanization in many developed countries has also shifted from animal driven to fossil fuel based farm power and thus excluding the need for gathering feedstock in the haystack. Furthermore, the risk of fire in haystack due to storage of dried crop residues can also not be eliminated completely. Hence, many farmers are not interested in transporting such bulky byproducts from crop field to farmhouse. In mono cropped areas, natural weathering and decomposition by soil organisms usually degrade the field crop residues but the residue management challenge is mostly under sequential cropping.

Agri-industrial residues in the other hand are derived from industries such as peels of potato, orange, and cassava; bagasse and molasses of sugarcane; oilcakes of groundnut, mustard, sunflower, sesame, soybean and coconut; and husks and bran of rice [7]. Huge quantities of organic wastes are produced by food and vegetable oil processing industries every year- but if left untreated and unutilized, may cause environmental pollution as well as human and animal health issues. A representative chemical analysis report of few agri biomass are depicted under **Table 1** for comparative studies.
