Currently India is producing 540 million tones of crop residues that include mainly straws, stovers, dry grasses and roughages. These feed resources are high in fiber, low in cell contents and bulky in nature. Roughage are of poor quality in terms of palatability, digestibility and nutrients availability and thus are unable to meet even the maintenance requirement of animals. Roughages along with other crop residues are the main ingredients of feeding systems in India and also in most of developing nations. The poor nutritive value of these feeds is the main hindrance in the better livestock productivity and thus improvement in the nutritive value of such feeds by different technologies viz. baling, densification, bock making, ammoniation, urea treatment, fungal treatment, enzyme additives and more is the demand of the hour. These animal feed science techniques not only will improve the nutritive value but also increase the palatability and density that will aid in their easy handling, transportation and storage. The editors of the book "Roughage Processing Technology" have compiled the available information furnished by experts of different aspects of feed technology across the country. Compaction of fibrous feeds, roughage particle, mechanical harvesting of fodder, processed feed for camel, block making, chemical preservation of forage, densification machines are the unique features of the book. The book will be of great relevence to the research scientists engaged in feed processing, nutrition of livestock and feed manufacturers besides the students and other associated with the animal husbandary enterprise
Dr. S.S. Kundu is currently Principal Scientist and Head, Plant Animal Relationship Division at IGRFI, Jhansi (U.P.). He has over 28 years of experience in the field of ruminant nutrition research. He was instrumental in initiating and shaping the work on feed technology, developing the feed block technology and feed microscopy for quality assurance. Dr. Kundu has undergone advanced training in the field of ruminant nutrition at the Netherlands and U.K. He is pioneer worker ion the field of carbohydrate, protein fractionations of animal feeds in the country. In addition to books on "Buffalo Production Under Different Climatic Regions, Animal Feed Technology, Complete Feed Block (Bulletin)", he has more than 150 research publications in the Journal of National and International repute. He has guided many post graduate and Ph.D. students at NDRI, Karnal. He is Vice President (Animal Nutrition Society of India), and also life member of eight scientific societies.
Dr. S.K. Mahanta Scientists (Animal Nutrition ), PAR Division, IGFRI, Jhansi has 10 years of research , extension and training experience in farm animal nutrition and feeding. He specializes in forage evaluation and development of forage based feeding system for different categories of ruminants. He has over 40 research papers of national and international repute. He is also in editorial board of two national journals and an active member of many scientific societies.
