Taming the circular economy

Often, vivid and/or powerful images help us get our head around change, and one that is fit for purpose here is the mythical dragon or serpent, Ouroboros, which bites or eats its own tail.

The image symbolises the cycle of samsara in which it continually devours itself and is reborn from itself. This is a perfect representation of a circular economy and indeed, the emerging view on managing organic waste.

Those who are heaping pressure on farmers to lift their game in respect of C-emissions, forget that their food comes from farms, and that a lovely orange, crunchy muesli, and even the wine they are gulping down as they castigate us, are all borne of the land! (In fact, we wouldn’t have any nasty agricultural contributions to the environment if people would just stop eating and drinking!)

Those same critics waste a huge amount of food. However, with more than 40 per cent of food produced in Australia being wasted, there are several opportunities to make further good from the bad.

About one fifth of the food is lost (17 to 24 per cent) inside the farm gate; two to five per cent during handling and transport; seven to 15 per cent during processing, manufacturing, distribution, retail and storage; and a whopping 10 to 20 per cent is chucked out at home.

Agriculture has much to gain by participating in the circular economy.

As previously discussed, high yielding pastures munch enormous amounts of carbon as CO2 (and we have learned that the methane argument is a red herring), as much as two to three times as trees per unit of land.

Equally, or perhaps even more importantly, the dairy industry is well entrenched in the circular economy.

Anerobic digestors to produce biogas from organic waste, compost, and the use of waste from the human food and fibre industries as feed supplements (for example, canola meal, brewers grains, cottonseed, bakery and candy waste) are examples of the circular economy in action.

The latter is often overlooked despite about five per cent of all food grown for human consumption being repurposed to animal nutrition as a waste product.

Both anaerobic digestion and composting are useful, positive practices for dealing with organic waste, and yet so much more can be gained with a simple change in process.

In my mind, organic waste going to landfill is a crime, and organic waste going to compost is yesterday’s technology.

If all organic waste, from the food (human), feed (animal) and fibre industries was used to its full capability, it could eliminate synthetic farm fertiliser needs, and improve food quality at the same time.

The problem with composting — and to a lesser extent, biogas production — is that an enormous portion of the carbon contained in the organic material the processes begin with, is lost to the environment in the final analysis.

The highly effective alternative for managing solid organic waste is a process called Groundswell. This is a patented process, developed in Queensland, which converts organic waste into a potent soil fixer-upper retaining 100 per cent of the carbon and nitrogen of the feedstock material.

Even more impressively is what happens when the resulting material is returned to the soil. I will explain the process over the next few editions, in the meantime, keep an eye out for one of our seminars where I explain all things regen.

Dr Les Sandles is a renowned thought leader and provocateur in the dairy industry. Best known for his role in revolutionising nutritional and pasture management practices, Les has turned his attention to the ‘last frontier’ — transmogrifying the forage production system into a C-munching machine.