Zero waste agriculture

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. Find sources: "Zero waste agriculture" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Agriculture
History Prehistory Neolithic Revolution Agriculture in Mesoamerica Austronesian expansion Ancient history Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient Rome Post-classical Agriculture in the Middle Ages Arab Agricultural Revolution Columbian exchange Modern history British Agricultural Revolution Green Revolution Organic Monoculture
On land Agrivoltaic Animal husbandry cattle pigs poultry sheep Dairy Dryland Extensive Fertilizer Free-range Grazing Convertible husbandry Rotational grazing Hobby Intensive animals pigs crops Natural Monoculture Orchard Organic Paddy field Ranching Sharecropping Colonia Slash-and-burn Smallholding Terrace Steam sterilization
Hydroculture Aquaculture Aquaponics Hydroponics Aeroponics
Related Agribusiness Agricultural cooperative Agricultural supplies Agricultural science Agricultural engineering Agricultural technology Digital Biotechnology Agroforestry Agronomy Animal husbandry Animal-free agriculture Cellular agriculture Contract farming Extensive farming Farm Farmhouse Feed ratio Free range Horticulture Intensive farming animals pigs crops Mechanised agriculture Organic farming Paludiculture Permaculture Plantation Polyculture Rice-duck farming Rice-fish system Sustainable agriculture Sustainable food system Universities and colleges Urban agriculture
Lists Agriculturist profession Agricultural machinery Government ministries Universities and colleges
Categories Agricultural machinery Agriculture by country Agriculture companies Biotechnology History of agriculture Livestock Meat industry Poultry farming Agriculture and the environment
Agriculture portal
v t e

Zero waste agriculture is a type of sustainable agriculture which optimizes use of the five natural kingdoms, i.e. plants, animals, bacteria, fungi and algae, to produce biodiverse-food, energy and nutrients in a synergistic integrated cycle of profit making processes where the waste of each process becomes the feedstock for another process.

The integration of shallow oxidisation ponds of microalgae was demonstrated by Golueke & Oswald in the 1960s. The widespread global implementation of these systems can be largely credited to Prof George Lai Chan-Yu-Thim (2 March 1924 Mauritius-8 October 2016 Mauritius) from ZERI.^[2] Zero waste agriculture is now practiced in China (ecological farming), Columbia (integrated food & waste management systems) & Fiji (integrated farming systems), India (integrated biogas farming), South Africa (BEAT Coop & African Agroecological Biotechnology Initiative) and Mauritius. The Brazilian government has adopted integrated farming system as a major social technology for the uplifting of marginalized and subsistence farmers through coordination with TECPAR.^[3]

Zero waste agriculture combines mature ecological farming practices that delivers an integrated balance of job creation, poverty relief, food security, energy security, water conservation, climate change relief, land security & stewardship.

Zero waste agriculture is optimally practiced on small 1-5 ha sized family owned and managed farms and it complements traditional farming & animal husbandry as practiced in most third world communities. Zero Waste Agriculture also preserves local indigenous systems and existing agrarian cultural values and practices.

Zero waste agriculture presents a balance of economically, socially and ecologically benefits as it:

1. optimizes food production in an ecological sound manner
2. reduces water consumption through recycling and reduced evaporation
3. provides energy security through the harvesting of biomethane (biogas) and the extraction of biodiesel from micro-algae, as a by-product of food production
4. provides climate change relief through the substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from both traditional agriculture practices and fossil fuel usage
5. reduces the use of pesticides through biodiverse farming

Certification of such farming practices is both challenging and an opportunity.^[4]

• Agricultural technology a/k/a Agritech
• Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture
• Miniwaste

• Ashok Pandey; Jonathan Wong; Kim Bolton; Mohammad Taherzadeh, eds. (July 18, 2019). Sustainable Resource Recovery and Zero Waste Approaches (Ebook). St. Louis, Missouri, USA: Elsevier Science. ISBN 978-0-444-64283-7.
• Gowhar Hamid Dar; Humaira Qadri; Khursheed Ahmad Wani; Mohammad Aneesul Mehmood; Rouf Ahmad Bhat, eds. (August 30, 2019). Innovative waste management technologies for sustainable development (Ebook). Practice, Progress and Proficiency in Sustainability (PPPS) Book Series. Hershey, Pennsylvania USA: IGI Global. ISBN 978-1-7998-0033-0.