Co-benefits and Trade-Offs From Agro-Food System Redesign for Circularity: A Case Study With the FAN Agent-Based Model

Abstract

Realizing more sustainable food, feed, and bioenergy systems will require interventions such as increased recycling of nutrients and coordination of biomass flows among farms. Innovative tools to explore the co-benefits and trade-offs of improving flow circularity in agro-food systems at different scales are needed to better understand the efficacy of these sustainability solutions. Here, we applied the FAN ("Flows in Agro-food Networks") agent-based model to simulate contrasting scenarios of material flows locally in a small farming region of France. These scenarios aim to enhance: (1) best management practices at the farm scale; (2) organic material recycling and biogas production collectively across the agricultural landscape; and (3) system redesign toward complete local circularity through crop and livestock symbiosis, fewer livestock, and elimination of external inputs. Scenario simulation outcomes are assessed in terms of their degree of circularity and food production. We find that best management practices at the farm scale and collective solutions for recycling (organic fertilization and anaerobic digestion) substantially improved the degree of circularity by tightening the local nitrogen (N) cycle without affecting food production. Among other co-benefits, changes in farm rotations to feed livestock locally increased the degree of circularity without appreciably impacting food production. The maximum circularity scenario showed considerable potential to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, however, they involved large trade-offs with food production that were even more pronounced with fewer livestock animals. Although regulating livestock numbers combined with eliminating chemical fertilizers was the most effective at mitigating GHG emissions, when applied simultaneously it substantially impacted food and bioenergy production. Such trade-offs for soil fertility demonstrate the importance of coupling crops and livestock for reaching self-sufficient circular systems. Our study illustrates how the FAN agent-based model can be applied to account for multiple types of interactions involved in transitions toward circularity in local agro-food systems, including the potential for co-benefits, and unintended consequences of interventions.

Codesign of Food System and Circular Economy Approaches for the Development of Livestock Feeds from Insect Larvae

“…Transport and distribution modelling has been used to optimise manure transportation, and strategy is critical in delivering the favoured economic outcomes for anaerobic digestion because transport costs will limit capability [51]. Prior research demonstrates that the implementation of transport strategy can reduce the economic barrier to utilising feedstocks for bioconversion to biogas, soil conditioners, and feeds, but it is the use of geographical information systems (GISs) that has been shown to incisively demonstrate the value allocation of resource flows in systems and supply chain networks [52]. The resource flow modelling that geographic information provides defines the boundaries to economic development for transporting foods, and these types of trade-off models of connectivity have been applied to anaerobic digestion capacities [53].…”

Circular Bio-economy—Paradigm for the Future: Systematic Review of Scientific Journal Publications from 2015 to 2021

“…On the other hand, in a historical analysis of the complex nexus among landscape, livestock, farming population and land uses in the agrarian metabolism in Barcelona, researchers have concluded that there has been a conspicuous decrease in circularity over time [146], which needs to be restored. French researchers tried to simulate the re-designing of the farming system in a small region of France, by imagining near-complete local circularity through crop and livestock symbiosis (feed-manure cycle), fewer livestock and avoidance of external inputs (chemical fertilisers for instance) [171], and arrived at the conclusion that while mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the farming community would have to be content with a drop in both food and bioenergy production. The British case study in Velenturf (2017) [11] documents how some existing symbiotic relationships came into being in the UK, to utilise agricultural feedstock (as well as wood-waste and bio-refuse derived fuel), in the service of the energy sector, and emphasises the importance of government-planned, facilitated and selforganised industrial symbiotic partnerships in circular bio-economies.…”

Sustainable Agri-Food Systems: Environment, Economy, Society, and Policy

“…This clearly shows that the economic impacts of SFSCs in particular, and agriculture and food systems in general, are context-specific and vary among countries/territories. Other articles have dealt with the relations between agri-food systems and innovative economic models, such as circular economies [35,100,222,[230][231][232], green economies [233], and bio-economies [234].…”

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