GOOD PRACTICE IN SWITZERLAND The connection between agriculture and circularity is easy to make: a piece of fruit (organic material) falls from a tree, rests on the ground and is slowly broken down into nutrients by microorganisms, and these nutrients (including nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) enrich the soil. This completes the biological cycle and provides the tree with the nutrients it requires to begin a new fruit production cycle. One might therefore be tempted to think that the circular economy does not need to be applied to agriculture because agriculture, by its very nature, is circular. However, a number of circular opportunities and strategies have an important role to play in agriculture and more broadly throughout the food production industry. When applied to the food production industry, the circular economy is a way both of reconnecting with this naturally circular essence (for example, not incinerating food waste because this doesn’t return the nutrients they contain to the soil), and of using different strategies to make the most of the potential offered by organic matter (for example, the cascading use of resources in a bioeconomy). The main circular economy opportunities that present themselves for the food production industry are discussed below.
Applying ecodesign at the agricultural production stage At individual farm level, the natural nutrient life cycle process explained above has the beneficial effect of fertilising the soil and making it for example more resistant to different weather conditions (drought or heavy rain). The latter effect can be limited by mechanised agricultural practices and/or breaking the nutrient cycle through practices such as extraction without the later return of nutrients to the soil and the intensive use of herbicides. The main purpose of the ecodesign principle is to manage resources as effectively as possible and extend the useful life of a product or material. It implies reorienting agricultural production methods towards practices that are more favourable to soil regeneration and the return of organic matter to the soil. Healthy soil is soil with a high organic matter content, and this factor is the key to agricultural ecodesign. Examples of agricultural practices that improve the soil’s organic matter content are crop rotation, planting cover crops, reducing the extent to which the soil is worked, and recycling crop residues through techniques such as composting and biodigestion. Different types of agriculture such as agroecology, pasture rotation, agroforestry, conservation farming
26 FOOD PRODUCTION INDUSTRY
and permaculture are also practices designed to extend the life of organic matter by returning agricultural waste to the soil and minimising the use of resources. The food production industry has cottoned on to these different issues and is slowly becoming interested in circular agricultural production systems. Nespresso has turned to agroforestry to preserve coffee cultivation ecosystems and increase their resilience20. This practice is also starting to be adopted at cantonal level in Switzerland: the association AGRIDEA is helping 140 farms in the cantons of Geneva, Jura, Neuchâtel and Vaud to develop agroforestry.
