Valorization of Agricultural Residues to Valuable Products: A Circular Bioeconomy Approach

Intensive agricultural production generates a lot of residues yearly, exhausting and depleting the soils and accumulating pesticides and mineral fertilizers. Although introducing the no-till technologies is related to the reduction of tillage, leaving most of the plant residues on the field and decreasing fertigation, the global crop residues are estimated to be 2800 million tons per year. They could be successfully utilized via several approaches integrated into the circular bioeconomy concept. Thus, stopping the existing vicious circle of digging most of the primary materials such as fossil fuels, the vast application of chemical fertilizers, gaining increased or restored biodiversity, capturing CO₂ into the soils and enhancing the organic content, having cleaner underground waters, soils and crop production, and finally improved quality of life. The transformation of these residues into value-added products faces various technological and commercialization difficulties that limit their fuller utilization. In the present chapter, we aim to describe the production of agricultural residues in the EU and present their properties and technologies for biological valorization. In addition, the potential risks associated with the micro- and nano-plastics content of agricultural residues are discussed.