Fish and Beer waste are food for Cattle and Poultry….

KOCHI: What if hens lay low-cholesterol and therefore, healthier eggs, cows produce 30% more milk with cheaper cattle feed and butter chicken becomes more nutritious?

India’s poultry and dairy industries have discovered that fish residue and brewery waste as poultry and cattle feed, make eggs healthier and milk, more abundant. The science behind this is: If hens are fed with fish residue, the nutritious cholesterol-battling Omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil easily move through the hen’s digestive system to the yolk of the egg, which otherwise comprises of cholesterol. Even butter chicken will become relatively healthy if the bird is fed this diet!

For dairies, the brewery waste is full of nutrients – only starch from the grain is used to make alcohol – lacking in traditional cattle feed like rice husk. The demand for beer waste has raised so much that it is booked in advance and the number of contractors in this business is rising every year.

The price difference and the better yield make beer waste a compelling proposition. The waste at breweries cost around Rs 5 a kg compared with Rs 17-18 a kg for the regular cattle feed. Substituting 30-40% of the cattle feed with beer waste leads to 20% better milk productivity. Farmers and businessmen are already considering the benefits of the new brew. “A farmer who uses regular cattle feed will have to spend Rs.150 a day for a single cow or buffalo. Replacing it with the beer waste can bring down the cost effectively to around Rs.60.

”And you get more milk,” says Shiva Chandra, a contractor based in Chennai, who is a supplier of beer waste to farms in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The only disadvantage is that brewery waste has a shelf life of not many days. For the poultry business, feed mixed with oil from fish waste, particularly from sardines, improves the diet and the cost is comparable to regular feed.

“The intestines and other parts of fish are rich in such oil which is easily absorbed by the bird…the egg yolk will become rich in Omega 3,” said Dr.Anandan, a scientist at the Central Institute of Fish Technology, which has developed a new technology that is now ready for commercial use after five years of research under the National Agricultural Innovation Project. The institute has produced such eggs through the experiments in a farm and is now waiting for entrepreneurs to adopt the technology and ultimately pave the way for branded Omega 3 eggs.

The brewery-to-milk business production chain obviously involves big liquor manufacturing companies that produce lots of brewery waste. Kerala Livestock Development Board, a government body that manages several farms in the state, purchases beer waste from United Breweries at Palakkad. Farmer and dairy owner C J Skaria Pillai supplies beer waste from the Palakkad brewery to several farms.

“There are around 45 contractors vying for nearly 700 tonnes of beer waste a month from the brewery,” he said. The spokesperson of UB Group declined to divulge the details on the quantity of beer waste the group sells from its breweries and how much it earns from it.