His flock rewards him with fertilizer: each chicken can produce 50 pounds of dry waste a year.
It sells the organic refuse to farmers as a soil nutrient and the dry waste to processors.
Scattered around its perimeter are giant mounds of dry waste, stacked in close proximity to the local population.
It is not uncommon for supermarkets to transport dry waste, such as cardboard or plastic, from stores to recycling centres in empty grocery delivery lorries.
21, Mr. Waqif, whose previous works have incorporated video, sound, dance and sculpture, has used unconventional material, weaving debris — like discarded wood panels, wiring, plastic waste, metal and dry waste — into an elaborate, interactive sculpture.
"It doesn't take a genius to know that you have to have at least two containers in the trucks to handle both the wet and the dry waste," she said.
For Vankatram, a pig farmer with just one name, the price of getting this discarded food was that he had to haul away the hotels' dry waste, giant bags of mixed plastic and paper.
All plants of the genus are known for their persistence; they grow well even in dry waste soil and can retain enough moisture to bloom and ripen seeds long after they have been uprooted.
It also has started a study to see how much would be saved if large waste generators such as schools, nursing homes and restaurants separated food waste from dry waste, because the tipping fee for food in a composter is cheaper.
