Agricultural waste is waste arising from crop-growing or livestock farming in agricultural holdings.
That includes, for example, materials from crop-growing such as biomass from second or third crops, harvest residues and harvest waste (herbs, grains, root tubers). Waste from livestock farming such as grass, litter or feed is also counted as agricultural waste. A large part of the farmyard manure from livestock (slurry, dung) does not count as agricultural waste. Agricultural waste makes up a significant proportion of the ecologically usable biomass potential in Switzerland.
Various procedures are available for the material-based or energy-based disposal of the waste: they include, for instance, composting, fermentation, direct spreading on the field or methane fermentation with other substrates in biogas plants. The biomass potential of agricultural waste is largely exhausted. Most waste lands in composting or fermentation plants and can then be recycled in the form of compost and solid digestate for agriculture.
Last modification 27.06.2019