New achievements in microbial biotechnology: Agro-food waste reduction and recovery of important regional food products

Providing food needs for a growing population in the future is a major global challenge. This issue is particularly important for countries in the region that face a crisis of water scarcity. Recent studies are shown that modern industrial biotechnology, have had great achievements in recovering the essential and useful compounds from the food and agricultural wastes and bringing them back to the food chain as well as the production of food ingredients from microbial resources. However, in order to achieve the practical and industrial results, there is a need for the participation of international organizations and the cooperation of the countries in the region to address the joint scientific problems and to scale up the biotechnological production or recovery of nutrients.According to FAO statistics, Iran, Iraq and Syria are among the world s largest producers of some products, including fruits, dairy, nuts and spices. For example, Iran ranks 1st in the world in the production of pomegranates, 2nd in dates, 3rd in figs, 3rd in cherries, 7th in grapes, and 7th in oranges. Iraq is the third largest producer of okra and the fifth of dates in the world, also Syria is the world s fourth largest producer in sheep milk production.On the other hand, many studies shows that fruits, vegetables, fish and cereals are the most wasted food category in the world. So it seems that biotechnological approaches in reducing these types of waste are matter of more importance. In the present review we focus on the new biotechnological trends in reducing and recycling of the main wasted food in the countries in the region such as fruit and vegetable (especially dates), cereals, fish and dairy products

Keywords:

Food loss , Fermentation , By product , Recovery