Alternative foods for poultry and swine in agroecological systems

Abstract

The animal production in sustainable agrosystems has grown in recent years, mainly by ecological issues, involving the reduction of environmental damage and the greater demand of the final consumer for products free of possible chemical residues. On issues involving food safety, the organic and agroecological production of monogastric is more difficult than that of ruminants due to different feeding of these animals. Ruminants have much of their nutritional requirements met by pastures, while monogastric have much of their nutritional requirements met by diets containing mostly corn and soybean. In most cases, the seeds of these ingredients are transgenic and a large load of agrochemicals is applied for their production. In addition, energy and/or protein sources are insufficient for animal production in sustainable agrosystems. Therefore, alternative sources of foods, which are produced in an unconventional way, without compromising the animal development and that are economically viable, are researched for the use in the feeding of monogastric animals, especially poultry and swine, in sustainable agrosystems. Thus, this work aims to review the main alternative products used for poultry and swine in unconventional production systems.