Hydroponic fodders for livestock production – a review

The human population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. One of the main challenges will be the demand for food and food security. With time farmland is being lost especially due to environmental change and anthropogenic activities. There is huge competition for the utilisation of farmland for human food production, animal feed production, energy production and other sectors that are utilising the farmland. To minimize the competition between human food and animal feed production, in terms of land use, alternative growing systems, such as hydroponics, may serve to address this problem. Hydroponics is a technology of sprouting grains or growing plants in a soilless environment, with only water or nutrient-rich solution. The present review aims to provide an evaluation of hydroponically-sprouted maize and barley in food producing animals, underlining benefits and limitations in its application.