Can you heat a hospital with wheat stubble? Or use chipped almond trees to improve your soil? These are some examples of circular economic trials that are underway in Australia at the moment.

Arguably, never before has there been such an incentive to develop circular economies, with the costs of fertiliser, fuel and electricity all rising significantly over the past few years.

But one of the big challenges in agriculture, is that we operate in linear economies, rather than in circular ones (i.e. most farmers buy inputs to produce outputs).

Even still, new circular economies are emerging across multiple sectors, in part to address the problem of the high cost of inputs and also to address environmental and sustainability concerns.

So, in this episode, we look at three very different circular economic solutions - where waste products are being re-used, recycled, or reprocessed for fertiliser, bio energy... and even water retention in soil. We look at circular economies from a local farm scale to regional initiatives (including heating a small Central Victorian hospital, with plant material waste).

GUESTS:

Neale Bennett – Almond grower in Merbein, Victoria (and participant in an Australian ‘Whole of Orchard Recycling’ study)

Daryl Scherger – Victorian Bioenergy Network

Dr Sara Hely – Director of Research at Riverine Plains (the Vic Hub’s NE Node)

For more information visit our website.

This podcast has been created by the Victoria Drought Resilience Innovation and Adoption Hub and is funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.