Biochar in Cattle Farming: An Innovative Solution for Soil Fertility and Cattle Productivity

Abstract

Biochar as a soil amendment is increasingly popular in agricultural sector in the past few years. The production and application of biochar is increasing in a constant rate to meet farm requirements. Biochar is similar to charcoal and activated charcoal, which are pyrogenic carbonaceous matter derived from organic carbon rich matter through pyrolysis. The primary products generated by pyrolysis are biochar, syngas and bio-oils depending on biomass and pyrolysis conditions. The quality of biochar is according to primary biomass source, pyrolysis temperature and time which ultimately effects on variations in physicochemical properties such as porosity, carboncontent, elemental composition, surface area, retention capacity and overall applications. While biochar has been receiving attention as a restorative soil amendment, innovative dimensions for this ultra-porous material are cropping up all over the industrial landscape. In recent times, biochar has been gaining attention in agricultural productivity not as a soil fertility agent, but as an animal feed and animal husbandry applications. Biochar a carbonized biomass similar to charcoal is utilized for treating animals for centuries. An enhanced utility of biochar as cattle feed globally, to improve animal health, increased nutrient intake efficiency and thus productivity. Since biochar is enriched with nitrogen rich organic compounds during the digestion process, the excreted biochar manure acts as a valuable organic fertilizer causing lower nutrient losses and green house gas emissions during storage and soil application. The use of biochar as feed additive has the ability for general body fitness of animals, increased feed efficiency, minimize nutrient losses and greenhouse gas emission, increase the soil organic matter content and thus soil fertility as applied to soil. It can maintain blood cell contents, increase egg, milk and meat productivity and able to resist pathogens in gastrointestinal tract and reduce methane emission from animals. Moreover, the high sorption capacity of biochar removes the pollutants and toxins from the gastrointestinal tract of animals. However, current awareness on effectiveness of biochar in animal production is less, which should be explored more. The challenges such as safety, dosages, contaminations, cost and awareness among farmers need to be addressed. The review highlights the potential benefits of biochar as animal feed in all possible dimensions

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