Chapter Three - Bio-Waste Management in Subtropical Soils of India: Future Challenges and Opportunities in Agriculture

Abstract

The rapid growth in population, food production, urbanization, and industrialization has accelerated the generation of bio-waste material such as crop residues, animal waste, and municipal solid waste. They wield tremendous impacts on soil health, climate change, and overall environment with pronounced ramifications for developing countries like India. In addition to the previously mentioned challenges, overexploitation of soil is causing the second-generation problems of nutritional disorders, decline in productivity, global warming–driven climate change, pollution, and so on. Therefore scientific and logical recycling of organics is of prime importance to eradicate the huge piles of bio-waste material in agriculture. It will, firstly, be of benefit to minimizing environmental pollution and, secondly, improve crop productivity, soil carbon status, and soil health in general. Contrary to this, unscientific management of organic waste hold disadvantages such as losses of essential plant nutrients, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), heavy metal contamination and development of sporadic pathogens harmful to animals and plants. The prime focus of this review is to signify the current prospects of organic waste management in India and their potential in agriculture. The article has comprehensively elaborated on GHG, fertilizer consumption, food grain production, nutrient removal by crops, and constraints of waste recycling. This review further emphasizes through future research needs the need to advance our knowledge regarding bio-waste management, so that we better understand and implement efficient waste management. It is also pertinent to develop a sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural practices so that organic resources mainly in the form of crop residues, animal waste, and municipal solid waste are utilized.