Silage in Sustainable Animal Husbandry: Opportunities and Limitations

With the rapid growth of global economy, per capita consumption and the demand for livestock products- such as meat, eggs and milk are steadily increasing (Komarek et al., 2021). Demand of forage quality is increasing along with the development of livestock farming (Keeling et al., 2019). However, the major constraint to livestock production in many countries is the inadequate supply of forage, which is primarily sources from feed crops, grasses, crop residues, and cereals (Cai et al., 2020a; Cai et al., 2021). As the global population is rising and per capita arable land is declining. Traditional methods of forage production are becoming insufficient to meet livestock feed requirement. Over the past 50 years, advancements in silage conservation technologies have accelerated both the physical handling and microbial fermentation processes involved in silage making. These improvements have supported the growth of large- scale livestock production systems by enabling faster and more efficient forage preservation.