This open access book on straw management aims to provide a wide array of options for rice straw management that are potentially more sustainable, environmental, and profitable compared to current practice. The book is authored by expert researchers, engineers and innovators working on a range of straw management options with case studies from Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia. The book is written for engineers and researchers in order to provide them information on current good practice and the gaps and constraints that require further research and innovation. The book is also aimed at extension workers and farmers to help them decide on the best alternative straw management options in their area by presenting both the technological options as well as the value chains and business models required to make them work. The book will also be useful for policy makers, required by public opinion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, looking for research-based evidence to guide the policies they develop and implement.

Rice straw, under increased scrutiny when burned as agricultural waste, has new promise as a livestock feed.

Rice and Rice Straw: Production, Cultivation and Uses opens with a discussion on rice straw, a substance rich in polysaccharides with a high lignin and silica content, limiting voluntary intake and reducing degradability by rumen microbes. The authors suggest that the treatment of rice straw could be a good potential feed for ruminants. Next, the authors revise the fractionation processes used for the recovery of hemicelluloses from rice straw, subsequently providing a critical appraisal of the potential products that can be derived from it, and what conversion and purification processes are necessary for their production. Additionally, the current and potential industrial status of these products is presented. A discussion on the essential improvement of the biotechnology sector in order to attain a continuous supply of rice is offered, especially focusing on genetic modification. Later, the main strategies in weed control in rice are reviewed, also touching on the impacts of rice cultivation in the environment and the genetically modified rice cultivars on weed control. Afterwards, the physical, chemical, thermochemical, and biological pretreatments of biomass are described, especially non-catalytic pretreatment of rice straw. The techno-economic analysis of thermochemical and biochemical platforms is also summarized. The authors present strategies for reducing and re-using rice straw, exploring the direct use of rice straw as filler, roofing, animal food, fuel, and even burning process in an open field. Finally, the proximate composition, lipids, utilization, and future perspectives of rice bran are reviewed.

Discusses hay, hay crops and crop residues in a wide range of situations. This publication deals with the haymaking process, cultivation of hay crops and management of natural hay fields as well as the harvest and conservation of crop residues as animal feed. A series of case studies from Asia, Africa and Latin America illustrate how hay and crop residues can be integrated into production systems.

Location and potential feed use. Handling and storing. Anatomical and chemical characteristics. Physical treatment. Wet treatment with sodium hydroxide. Industrial-scale dry treatment with sodium hydroxide. Farm-scale dry treatment with sodium hydroxide. Ensiling with sodium hydroxide. Ammonia treatment; Treatment with other chemicals. Microbial conversion of lignocellulose into feed; Whole crop harvesting, separation and utilization; Microbial degradation in the digestive tract. Digestibility, nutritive value and feed intake; Supplementation of diets based on fibrous residues and by-products; In practical rations for cattle and buffaloes; In practical rations for cattle; In practical rations for sheep and goats. In the diet of other ruminants and non-ruminant herbivores; Laboratory methods for evaluating the nutritive value of untreated and treated fibrous by-products; The economics of using straw as feed; Implications of a more widespread use of straw and other fibrous by-products as feed.

China's population accounts for about 22 per cent of the world's total population, but the country has only seven per cent of global farmland. In order to ensure a sufficient food supply to feed its population, the Chinese government has explored the use of non-traditional feed resources. This publication looks at China's national programme (APCR) to establish an animal production system based on the use of crop residues such as wheat and rice straw, abundant and widely spread fodder resources, rather than using the grain supply. Over the last decade, this programme has been expanded to cover the rearing of beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats and buffalo; and has been regarded as the turning point to resolve the nation's feed problem.

Organization of forage plants tissue. Utilization of forage fiber by ruminants. Perspectives of cell wall biodegradation-session synopsis. Quantitative analysis of cell wall components. Analysis of forage cell wall polysaccharides. Application of methods for the investigation of lignin structure. Analysis of plant cell walls-session synopsis. Composition and structure of cell wall polysaccharides in forages. Lignin/hydroxycinnamic acid/polycinnamic complexes: synthetic models for regiochemical characterization. Comprehensive model of the lignified plant cell wall. Structure of forage cell walls-session synopsis. Cell wall polysaccharide interactions and degradability. Cell wall lignification and degradability . Machanistic models of forage cell wall degradation. Cell wall matrix interactions and degradation-session synopsis. Microbial adhesion and degradation of plants cell walls. Microbial ecology of cell wall fermentation. Enzymatic hydrolysis of forage cell walls. Microbial and molecular mechanisms of cell wall degradation-session synopsis. Particle-size reduction by ruminants-effects of cell wall. Kinetics of cell wall digestion and passage in ruminants., Influence of feeding management on ruminant fiber digestibility., Cell wall degradation in the ruminant-session synopsis. Cell wall biosynthesis and its regulation. Environmental and genetic effects on cell wall composition and digestibility. Postharvest treatment of fibrous feedstuffs to improve their nutritive value. Machanisms for altering cell wall utilization-session synopsis.

Legumes are an important source of protein for humans and animals. They provide nutritionally rich crop residues for animal feed, and playa key role in maintaining the productivity of soils particularly through biological nitro gen fixation. They are, therefore, of immense value in rainfed farming systems. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) has a responsibility for research on food, pasture, and forage legumes. The Center also has the broad objective of improving livestock production in rainfed farming systems. Although food legumes have be~n known and grown by farmers in the WANA region for a long time, their productivity has remained low and variable. Forage legumes, on the other hand, are not so well known by farmers of the region, and their role in the farming systems is not so well understood. Thus, we need to develop the concept of using forage legumes as crops and to fit them into cropping systems. In its efforts to increase the productivity of food legumes and develop the legume-based crop/livestock systems, ICARDA has established a network of scientists in the different National Agricultural Research Systems in the region. To further strengthen this network, ICARDA convened a workshop on 'The Role of Legumes in the Farming Systems of Mediterranean Areas' in Tunis, Tunisia, 20-24 June 1988. This workshop was co-sponsored by UNDP, who also contributed funds for this publication.