APPLYING THE PRECEPTS OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

The connection between agriculture and the circular economy is a fundamental one: if a piece of fruit or a vegetable (organic matter) ‘falls’ from a tree or plant and is not collected, it remains on the ground, where it is broken down into nutrients by microorganisms. These nutrients enrich the soil. This natural process closes the biological cycle by providing the tree, plant or soil with the nutrients it needs to begin a new production cycle.

When put to use in agriculture and the food production industry, the circular economy is a way of applying this biological cycle more effectively. This can, for example, take the form of not incinerating food waste because this doesn’t return the nutrients they contain to the soil. It also makes the most of the potential offered by organic matter through the bioeconomy (cascading use of resources).

What is the bioeconomy?

The bioeconomy is the name given to all economic activities based directly on the moderate use of biological resources. One principle of the bioeconomy is to maximise the use of renewable bioresources while taking into account the limits of agroecosystems. What this means in practice is applying circular organisation to agricultural production (re-using co-products, recycling waste and optimising energy flows).

The bioeconomy is thus about the economical use of the resources produced by the living world, such as farm waste, which can replace the conventional synthetic materials produced by the chemicals industry.

Organic matter can be returned to the soil at every stage of the food production value chain. The journey from field to fork results in losses of organic matter, some of which are more commonly referred to as agricultural by-products. In the production phase, this means the produce that remains in the fields. In the transformation phase, it means the different materials that result from the industrial preparation of a product, such as pulp, peelings and bones. In the use phase, the by-products are the food left uneaten on the plate or which goes off in the refrigerator. Re-using these by-products tends to extend the lifespan of this organic matter and lessen the environmental impact of the different processes.

There are many examples of this ‘re-purposing’ in Switzerland. Schweizer Zucker (Canton of Thurgau) sells the pulp generated by its sugar beet processing method as animal feed. L’Union Maraîchère de Genève creates highend food products from unsold local agricultural produce. Some Swiss farmers have adopted biomethanisation technology that enables them to generate energy and produce fertiliser from agricultural waste (see page 28). This kind of ‘recycling’ constitutes a circular strategy that can be appended to a company’s business model. It can, however, also be a business model in itself, as in the case of Centravo (Canton of Bern), which collects and recycles abattoir and butchery by-products (see page 28). The same is true of companies that process soil and compost products, such as Ricoter (Canton of Aargau).

AgriCo: a 100-hectare site in Saint-Aubin developing innovation in agriculture

AgriCo, the Swiss Campus for Agri and Food Innovation, is dedicated to creating value in agriculture, nutrition and the bioeconomy. This site is part of a complete ecosystem designed to foster innovation through synergies between private, institutional and academic stakeholders. With 100 ha of agricultural land at its disposal for full-scale field trials, it also boasts a number of industrial sites, offices and laboratories which between them cover every development stage, from research to production and including precision fermentation and agriculture 4.0. www.agrico.swiss