Developing Circular Agricultural Production Systems

“The book contains valuable chapters that provide a useful introduction to how circular economy concepts apply to agricultural systems, supplemented with more in-depth descriptions and analyses of important technologies which may help moving towards improved circularity.” (Book Review Published in the Journal of Circular Economy – Dr A. G. T. Schut and Dr W. J. Vonk, Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

With the agricultural sector pledging to improve its sustainability, there is an urgent need to move away from linear food production models which rely on significant raw material inputs and generate large amounts of residual waste.

Developing circular agricultural production systems reviews the emergence of circular agriculture as an approach to improving the sustainability of the agricultural sector. The book addresses recent advances in understanding and developing closed-loop systems to optimise crop nutrient cycles and resource use, as well as ways agricultural wastes can be recycled back into agricultural production or used as feedstock to produce a range of bio-based materials.

With its comprehensive coverage, the book showcases how to develop circular agricultural production systems, from using crop residues as livestock feed, to producing biogas from livestock manure and manufacturing bio-plastics from agricultural waste.

Professor (UZ) Dr Barbara Amon is an Associate Professor for Environmental Engineering and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Zielona Góra, Poland and a Senior Research Scientist and Board Representative for Research at the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB), Germany. Professor Amon sits on many panels, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), UNECE, UNEP and the FAO LEAP Partnership.

Dr Víctor Riau currently works at the Sustainability in Biosystems program of the Institute of Agri-food Research and Technology (IRTA). Dr Riau's research is focused on chemical and environmental engineering, organic waste (water) treatment and valorisation, biogas production, nutrient removal and recovery and emission characterisation and mitigation

Cristina Prieto (Dr.) graduated in Chemical Engineering (2010), at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain), received a MSc in Industrial Processes Engineering, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University Complutense of Madrid (Spain). Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Novel Materials and Nanotechnology Group (Spanish Council of Scientific Research). She has received the Extraordinary Doctoral Thesis Award, the Flucomp Best Thesis Award, the UCM University Entrepreneurship Award, the V Cátedra Agrobank Award, as well as several awards for the quality of her scientific communications. She has published more than 45 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, 3 licensed patents, 3 utility models, 9 chapters, 1 book, and more than 50 abstracts in international conferences. Her expertise involves emerging and conventional encapsulation technologies with application in the food and pharmaceutical industries.