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Circular Economy: From Innovation to Upscaling

2024-03-20

Recycling organic waste into soil amendments and animal feed through a transdisciplinary approach – this is what the RUNRES project, launched in four sub-Saharan African countries four years ago, seeks to achieve. Now the promising results of the first phase are to be upscaled. Three of the project's scientists report.

By Leonhard Späth

Leonhard Späth is a social scientist at the Sustainable Agroecosystems’ Group (SAE) and Transdisciplinarity Lab (TdLab) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. His focus is the integration of different stakeholders’ perspectives to co-design projects.

All contributions

By Sharon Migeri

Sharon Migeri is an agricultural scientist at the Sustainable Agroecosystems’ Group (SAE) at ETH Zurich. Her role is to ensure quality of products produced through RUNRES innovations.

All contributions

By Johan Six

Johan Six is a Professor at ETH Zurich and leads the SAE group. His research ranges from basic soil science to applied food systems research.

All contributions

This article first appeared in Rural21 and is part of a media cooperation between Rural21 and foodfortransformation.org.

The RUNRES project – in full, The Rural-Urban Nexus: Establishing a Nutrient Loop to Improve City Region Food System Resilience – aims to set a key step in the transformation towards a circular and more sustainable agriculture and waste management in four city regions of sub-Saharan African countries: DR Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda and South Africa. It is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and entails two main phases: a piloting phase (2019–23) and a scaling-up phase (2023–27). The aim of the first phase was to pilot a set of innovations and evaluate their ability to contribute to a circular economy by linking organic waste management to agriculture. For this, we took a transdisciplinary research approach, where we co-produced the different innovations with different actors: waste collectors, farmers’ cooperatives, collection and treatment companies, and regulators. This approach made it possible to co-develop innovations between science and practice that are tailored for the local context.

The innovations co-developed in phase 1 can be classified in three types: recycling organic and food waste; recycling human waste, faeces and urine; and supporting small-scale processing in relation to the flows of recycled organic waste. For each of these innovations, we ensured that they were technically feasible, that regulatory standards were met and that the output would have a meaningful impact in terms of circular economy. In addition, we evaluated how the different actors and their respective sectors integrated along with the project.

Circulating organic waste back to agriculture

By circulating organic waste back to agriculture, the innovations contribute to improved environmental and human health, one of our main objectives. For example, organic waste collected from urban centres of the city regions, transported and processed into compost, have the capacity to provide critically needed organic soil inputs for farmers in rural areas. These innovations simultaneously alleviate environmental and human health challenges in these urban centres, while also improving soil health and fertility in the adjacent agricultural zones.

In RUNRES, we used an array of technologies that we co-developed with different local actors to make them viable to the realities on the ground. The technologies that proved to be viable during our piloting phase are:

composting and co-composting of organic and human waste through thermophilic compost and vermi-compost production (DR Congo, Ethiopia, South Africa and Rwanda),
rearing black soldier flies’ larvae with organic waste to produce animal feed (Rwanda),
treating cassava peels through fermentation (to remove aflatoxins and cyanides), drying, and grinding for animal feed supplement (Rwanda),
deactivating pathogens in urine through long-term storage for urine-derived fertiliser (Rwanda and DR Congo).

In addition, we supported small-scale food production, for instance through producing banana flour as a substitute for cereal-based flour, also adapted as baby-food (Ethiopia). Piloting these innovations enabled us to see what bottlenecks exist to their application at a larger scale, given the local context of the four participating countries.

Ensuring quality standards

The use of organic and human waste by farmers poses a number of risks due to possible pathogen and pollutant accumulation in the products. Therefore, we set up a quality assurance programme aiming to measure the following parameters to guarantee the quality of the products: the agronomic parameters, for instance nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and carbon, the level of pathogens, for example Escherichia coli or Helminths’ eggs, and the amount of heavy metals, for instance lead or cadmium. Overall, it has become apparent that soil inputs produced through the project have agronomic parameters similar to compost which can be found on the market. We could also show that the processes set in place deactivated harmful pathogens. The remaining challenge is the level of some heavy metals, which exceeded the norms in some places, although these cases were rather exceptional.

Settings for upscaling

The innovations piloted during the first project phase were, inter alia, selected according to their potential viability for scaling. The different innovations will have three different settings to allow an upscaling in capacity and space:

Upscaling: this setting will be the next step for existing consortia which we piloted in Phase 1, and which are already working on RUNRES innovations. In this setting, the existing innovations will continue to grow, aiming to reach a larger output with a strongly decreased intensity of financial contribution through the project.

Replicating: In this setting, most of the innovations will be replicated through other transdisciplinary consortia, i.e. implemented in other places by other actors. The development of these innovations is to be directly supported through technical backup and co-financing by the RUNRES core team. However, the project’s financial contribution for this setting will be significantly lower per unit of output compared to Phase 1, since the expertise has already been developed through the piloting.

Supporting: This last setting will take place in the form of indirect support to implement RUNRES innovations by other actors who have their own financial means for implementation. The actors we target are already active in organic waste recovery, but may be in a different area of the countries we focus on. The project will not directly financially support these innovations but will provide indirect support by making available its acquired knowledge in the successful implementation of the innovations.

The different innovation settings of the second phase will be deployed timely over four years. While the initial focus is to be on upscaling the innovations from Phase 1 that have been evaluated as suitable for upscaling, we aim in parallel at replicating these innovations in different places with new actors. This will take place through public-private partnerships and through the co-development of business plans with the new actors, with the aim of leveraging financial resources from existing business development institutions. While some innovations are to be upscaled through the private sector, others will require committed support from the public sector, for instance for organic-waste sorting and collection at a household level. Finally, later in time, we aim at supporting any actors interested in recovering organic waste through the quality assurance capacity developed along with the project. In this way, we will be able to first scale up and then scale out to make a substantial contribution to sustainability through a large deployment of circular economy solutions.

Back to overview

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(c) Christof Krackhardt/Brot für die Welt

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A Project of GIZ

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New legal initiatives towards deforestation-free supply chains as a game changer

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The fight against illegal fishing

A Report

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Water may offer the only chance

Interview with Caroline Milow and Ramon Brentführer

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A project of WFP

Silicon Valley for Africa’s agricultural start-ups

A contribution by Michel Bernhardt (GIZ)

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An interview with David Brand (GIZ)

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Digitalization: The Driving Force in the Future of Agriculture?

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Innovation Challenge Finals

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Digital participation in the agrofinance sector: rural development and women's inclusion

A Contribution by GIZ

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Empowering farmers to control their own data

A contribution by GIZ

A new study on the digitalisation of agriculture puts farmers back at the centre of their own sector, identifies market gaps and gives recommendations on how to support relevant actors.

The goals of transformation should leave no one behind

An Interview with Mareike Haase and Stig Tanzmann

Four interviews kick off the relaunch under the new name „Food4Transformation“, asking the same questions from different perspectives. Mareike Haase and Stig Tanzmann from Brot für die Welt explain why the right to food, inclusivity, agroecology and food sovereignty are the central levers for a successful transformation.

Agricultural policy belongs in prime time

An interview with Dr. Julia Köhn

Four interviews kick off the relaunch under the new name „Food4Transformation“, asking the same questions from different perspectives. Dr Julia Köhn, Chair of the German AgriFood Society, points out in the interview: Only if innovation and transformation are profitable in the medium term can they close the food gap in the long term.

How a Nigerian fintech wants to secure 1 billion US dollars for farms

An Interview with Blessing Mene

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Farmers reap big from Climate Smart Farming

An Article by Angeline Ochieng & Victor Raballa

Journalists Angeline Ochieng and Victor Raballa visited Ms Bilha Munyole, a Kenyan farmer in Kimilili, Bungoma County, on her maize plantation. About the important role of mechanisation in climate-smart agriculture and in building resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Together #AgainstHunger and #AgainstPoverty

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In light of World Food Day, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development launched a campaign: Three women from Kenya, Benin and Ecuador share how their ideas and local solutions are fighting hunger and poverty.

Agricultural Financing – from a broader Perspective

A Contribution by GIZ

In Sub-Saharan Africa, not all financial institutions (FIs) have access to knowledge about how to implement processes to enhance rural financial inclusion. The pan-African Community of Practice (CoP) plays a pivotal role in supporting these institutions along this transformative journey.

Agriculture is more than Culture or Tradition

A Contribution by Simeon Kambalame

How can agriculture engage more young people in rural areas? Advocacy and education campaigns can play an important role here. Simeon Kambalame, Timveni Child and Youth Media Organisation, has launched such a campaign in Malawi.

Cotton of the Future

A Contribution by GIZ

VR glasses are hardly a conventional tool in agriculture: for the past three years, they have been used in rural areas of Burkina Faso and Cameroon as a training tool for sustainable cotton cultivation.

From Coexistence to Collaboration

A Contribution by Initiative für nachhaltige Agrarlieferketten (INA)

The demand for sustainable products and supply chains is constantly increasing. DIASCA is an alliance that works on interoperability of digital solutions in agricultural supply chains through the development of open standards for forest monitoring, farm income and traceability.

Small-scale farmers’ responses to COVID-19 related restrictions

A study by SLE

The lockdown due to COVID-19 hit the economy hard - including agriculture in particular with its supply chains and sales markets. What creative coping strategies have those affected found? The Seminar for Rural Development has begun a research study on th

The state of food security in Cape Town and St. Helena Bay

A study by Markus Hanisch, Agustina Malvido, Johanna Hansmann, Alexander Mewes, Moritz Reigl, Nicole Paganini (SLE)

Post-Covid-19 lockdown: How food governance processes could include marginalised communities - an extract of the results of an SLE study applying digital and participatory methods.

Green from the growth container

A contribution by Maria Smentek (WFP)

If there is a lack of fertile soil and rain, hunger breaks out quickly. Maria Smentek from the World Food Programme (WFP) explains how farmers and pastoralists can counter climate change with hydroponic-systems.

Not waiting for a savior

An article by Lidet Tadesse

While Africa is the least affected region by Covid-19 so far, the number of confirmed cases and deaths on the continent is quickly rising. Despite the challenges many African countries continue to face, the African response to the coronavirus pandemic displays innovation and ingenuity.

Hunger is caused by people, not the climate

Interview with Jacob Schewe (PIK)

A study by the World Bank predicts that millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa will have to leave their homelands because of climate change. We have spoken with one of the authors

(c) Christoph Püschner/Brot für die Welt

The North bears the responsibility, the South bears the burden

A report by Susanne Neubert (SLE)

Adaptation to climate change can be achieved by making agriculture more environmentally sustainable – if the rich countries also reduce their emissions

How Can We Feed The World in Times of Climate Change?

A Contribution by Jan Grossarth

Genetically modified bacteria become edible proteins, cows graze on pasture, and no waste is produced in an industrial circular economy. Journalist Jan Grossarth sees a silver lining for the future of world nutrition

How to Combat Hunger in Times of Climate Crisis?

An Interview with Martin Frick (WFP)

The climate crisis fuels world hunger. What needs to change in the global fight against hunger, and which role plays humanitarian aid in international development cooperation?

World Soil Conference ends with resolutions on drought management and land restoration

A contribution by GIZ

At the UNCCD COP15, the nearly 200 Parties met in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. A key goal is to halt the loss of fertile soils by 2030.

Drugs and the Environment

A Contribution by Jorrit Kamminga

This year's United Nations World Drug Report highlights for the first time the nexus between illicit drugs and the environment. In view of climate change, it is time to feed the debate with facts and make drug policy greener

Our Food Systems are in Urgent Need of Crisis-Proofing: what needs to be done

An Artikel by TMG

Based on a scientific study by TMG Think Tank, the authors highlight various challenges in the fight against the hunger crisis. The findings show that climate change, conflict and covid-19 are increasing food and energy prices.

5 Questions for Jann Lay: What is Corona doing to the economy?

Interview with Jann Lay (GIGA)

The Corona pandemic is hitting economies around the world very hard - but developments in African countries are quite diverse. There are different speeds, resiliences and vulnerabilities. What are the reasons for this? Apl. Prof. Jann Lay of the GIGA Institute provides answers.

Farmers' organizations want to be involved in designing agricultural policy

An interview with Kolyang Palebele

Four interviews kick off the relaunch under the new name „Food4Transformation“, asking the same questions from different perspectives. "Women and young people need access to land. And they need financial support to cultivate this land." - says Kolyang Palebele, President of the Pan African Farmers Organisation (PAFO).

From field to fan shop: how to increase supply

A contribution by Jan Rübel

Organic cotton is extremely popular – but farmers still find it difficult to change their conventional cultivation methods. A new project addresses this dilemma: Bundesliga football teams in Germany are promoting the switch to organic cotton in India. And thereby setting an example.

Working with nature for diversity in farming, climate protection and empowerment

Ein Beitrag von Friederike Bauer

Germany joins the international Agroecology Coalition, reinforcing its commitment to fair, sustainable agriculture and ensuring the future viability of rural areas. By adopting a holistic approach, agroecology is helping to address the greatest challenges of our time: protecting the climate, combating hunger and preserving biodiversity.

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Circular Economy: From Innovation to Upscaling

By Leonhard Späth

By Sharon Migeri

By Johan Six

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Interview with Joao Campari (WWF)

A contribution by Irene Hoffmann (FAO)

A contribution by Dr. Karin Gaesing and Prof. Dr. Frank Bliss (INEF)

A Contribution by Emile Frison and Nick Jacobs (IPES-Food)

An Interview with Dirk Schattschneider (BMZ)

A photo reportage by the Zeitenspiegel agency

A Contribution by the Forestry Research Institute Nigeria

An Interview with Jochen Flasbarth (BMZ)

A Contribution by Thomas Forster

A contribtion by WE4F

A Contribution by Gerhard Langenberger

A Report

Interview with Caroline Milow and Ramon Brentführer

A Contribution by Brot für die Welt

A contribution by Michel Bernhardt (GIZ)

An interview with David Brand (GIZ)

A listicle for climate-neutral agriculture

A Call by BMZ and Partners

A Contribution by the TMG Think Tank for Sustainability

An Initiative by GIZ Fond i4Ag

A Contribution by GIZ

An event organised by GIZ on behalf of BMZ

A Contribution by GIZ

A contribution by GIZ

An Interview with Mareike Haase and Stig Tanzmann

An interview with Dr. Julia Köhn

An Interview with Blessing Mene

An Article by Angeline Ochieng & Victor Raballa

A Campaign of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

A Contribution by GIZ

A Contribution by Simeon Kambalame

A Contribution by GIZ

A Contribution by Initiative für nachhaltige Agrarlieferketten (INA)

A study by SLE

A study by Markus Hanisch, Agustina Malvido, Johanna Hansmann, Alexander Mewes, Moritz Reigl, Nicole Paganini (SLE)

A contribution by Maria Smentek (WFP)

An article by Lidet Tadesse

Interview with Jacob Schewe (PIK)

A report by Susanne Neubert (SLE)

A Contribution by Jan Grossarth