Agroecology Knowledge Hub

Recycling: more recycling means agricultural production with lower economic and environmental costs

Waste is a human concept – it does not exist in natural ecosystems. By imitating natural ecosystems, agroecological practices support biological processes that drive the recycling of nutrients, biomass and water within production systems, thereby increasing resource-use efficiency and minimizing waste and pollution.

Recycling can take place at both farm-scale and within landscapes, through diversification and building of synergies between different components and activities. For example, agroforestry systems that include deep rooting trees can capture nutrients lost beyond the roots of annual crops. Crop–livestock systems promote recycling of organic materials by using manure for composting or directly as fertilizer, and crop residues and by-products as livestock feed. Nutrient cycling accounts for 51 percent of the economic value of all non-provisioning ecosystem services, and integrating livestock plays a large role in this. Similarly, in rice–fish systems, aquatic animals help to fertilize the rice crop and reduce pests, reducing the need for external fertilizer or pesticide inputs.

Recycling delivers multiple benefits by closing cycles and reducing waste that translates into lower dependency on external resources, increasing the autonomy of producers and reducing their vulnerability to market and climate shocks. Recycling organic materials and by-products offers great potential for agroecological innovations.

Database

Lecture: "Sustainable Farming through Agroecology" by Stephen Gliessman with Mark Bittman
Video
2015
“Women are key actors across agrifood systems and key contributors to agricultural and rural development,” said Qu in his address to the inaugural High-Level Dialogue, which was brought together by the food Coalition on 27 May 2022. The main objective of the event is to discuss the ways to: - ensure a stronger gender...
Video
2022
In this report, the High-Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) explores the nature and potential contributions of agroecological and other innovative approaches to formulating transitions towards sustainable food systems (SFSs) that enhance food security and nutrition. The HLPE adopts a dynamic, multiscale perspective, focusing...
Report
2019
Burkina Faso ranks as the sixth poorest country in the world according to the 2015 UN Human Development Report. Recent studies estimate that 46.4% of the population in the Eastern Region lives below the poverty line. These people are caught in a vicious cycle of degrading natural resources, declining soil...
Burkina Faso
Case study
2016
Small-scale food producers' organizations and civil society organizations defend agroecology as a way of life of their peoples, in harmony with the language of Nature. It is a paradigm shift in the social, political, productive and economic relations in their territories, to transform the way they produce and consume food and to...
Conference report
2018