Dear Colleagues,

Food from animal sources contributes 25% of global protein consumption and 18% of global calorie consumption. It also provides a variety of micronutrients such as vitamins, riboflavin, calcium, iron, and zinc in sufficient amounts, which are difficult to achieve from plant-sourced foods. The demand for animal-source foods such as meat and milk is expected to increase by 57% and 48%, respectively, by 2050 due to rising incomes, growing population and urbanization in many parts of the world. Due to the continually increasing price of corn and soybean meal since 2019 caused mainly by the global pandemic and unstable international politics, the producers of swine, cattle and chicken have faced the highest level of feed cost inflation. Feed cost can account for 60–70% of the total cost of animal production, which directly affects the prices of animal-source proteins available for human consumption. Therefore, developing feed from low-cost crops or upcycling current agro-industrial by- and co-products are critical for reducing the overall cost of animal production and the price of animal-source protein, reducing food–feed competition and making animal production sustainable with a low-carbon footprint.

This Special Issue will focus on biotechnological innovations in novel feed development for monogastric animals (swine, poultry and fish) and ruminant animals (cattle, sheep and goat), including but not limited to the evaluation of different feedstocks, the evaluation of existing and new microorganisms, bioprocessing strategies such as solid-state fermentation (SSF), submerged fermentation (SmF), co-culture fermentation, sequential fermentation, the combination of physiochemical treatment with fermentation, fermented feed with in vitro and in vivo feeding test and animal performance evaluation, feed fermentation to co-produce potential high-valued bioproducts, techno-economic analysis and the life-cycle assessment of feed bioprocessing.

Therefore, I invite authors to submit original research articles, critical reviews, and short communications related to the topics of this Special Issue, “Bioconversion of Agricultural Wastes into High-Nutrition Animal Feed”.

Dr. Sun Xiao
Prof. Dr. Bo Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• agricultural waste
• microorganisms
• fermentation
• animal feeding ingredients
• animal nutrition
• value-added bioproducts
• techno-economic analysis
• life-cycle assessment