ABSTRACT
The world’s agroecosystems are under extreme pressure as they are intensively exploited to cope with the expanding population. Recent advances in agricultural practices and the agro-based industry have totally changed the dimensions of sustainable agriculture development. Thus, massive developmental and technique-driven agricultural practices lead to facets like agricultural wastes and environmental pollutants. Agricultural wastes are the end-products of farming practices, which include rice husk, wheat straw, maize husk and cobs, millet stovers, pineapple peels, fruits, sugarcane bagasse and molasses etc. Improper disposition and handling of these agricultural residues pose irreparable and irreversible impacts on the environment i.e., climate change, salinization, water pollution, biocides production and toxicity to living biota. Thus, there is an urgent need to exaggerate agricultural wastes to minimize further insurgencies. However, efforts are poured into developing certain bio-resources from these agricultural wastes such as production of biogas to compliment the fuel problems, bio-adsorbents, biochar and energy production etc. These wastes also contain elements like phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium with high organic content required to enrich soil fertility. Thus, it could act as bio-fertilizer and nutrient pools for agro-ecosystems. This chapter reviews the complexities of agricultural wastes, their ecological concerns and management perspectives.
