Instant Insights: Developing a Circular Economy: 114 (Burleigh Dodds Science: Instant Insights)

This book features five peer-reviewed reviews on developing a circular economy in agriculture.

The first chapter discusses the relationship between a circular economy and bioeconomy as they relate to agriculture, as well as the key principles and challenges of circular, closed-loop agricultural systems.

The second chapter introduces new approaches to food production and ‘waste’ management, including the opportunity to partially close nutrient cycles in urban agricultural settings and the wider food system.

The third chapter provides a brief overview of the key principles of a circular economy and discusses how the advent of new alternatives to plastic food packaging can contribute to mitigating plastic waste and its environmental impact.

The fourth chapter discusses facility-based plant production systems, such as plant factories, and the importance of the circulation of materials in achieving a sustainable balance between food production and environmental protection.

The final chapter considers how regenerative urban agri-food systems can be built through a circular economy approach and provides examples of how this can be achieved, as well as how novel natural resource networks can be created in circular food economies in urban areas.

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.