Episode 9: Tapping into Circular Economies

05/23/23 • 39 min

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.

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.

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.

Previous Episode

Bonus Episode: Wayne Schild - From paramedic to big-thinking, commercial farmer

Wayne Schild's journey from paramedic to commercial farmer has taken guts, vision and plenty of curiosity.
In this bonus episode, we're playing the extended interview with Wayne, who we spoke to in Episode 6 - 'Staying Operational While Innovating'.
Wayne grows garlic in Victoria's Western districts where farmers mainly produce sheep and wool.
It's been a huge journey for his business called Grange Garlic, from the lows of suffering major crop losses, to the highs of finding a way to mechanize his operations - allowing the business to move from artisan to commercial.

"I have no claim or credentials, only that I wanted to be a farmer and I wanted to do something that mattered. I simply have followed the path of authenticity and have refused to go to market with a substandard product. All other ways of processing garlic, in my view, destroy the natural attributes of what garlic has. Everyone knows garlic for its flavour and aroma."

Wayne Schild, Managing Director, Grange Garlic Pty Ltd

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.

Next Episode

Episode 10: Has your innovation actually been successful?

So, you’ve implemented change, well done! How do you know it was all worth it?

This episode is the final from our current series on 'how to innovate' - and it's time to take stock. But really, that all comes down how you measure your success.

In the first episode, "What is innovation?", we looked at three key motivators:
1) for growth and profit
2) for climate resilience or consumer future-proofing
3) for community building.
And it turns out these key motivators are also quite useful as metrics of success.

So, in this episode hear how social and cultural innovations have helped to forge bush tucker markets and create employment pathways at Worn Gundidj, an Aboriginal Cooperative in south-west Victoria; we discover how regional collaborations have created fit-for-purpose research and innovation across the Mallee region of Victoria and; we learn some of the key numbers and strategic questions you should be asking when measuring the success of an innovation.

GUESTS:

Dylan Kelly & Peter Lyles, Horticulture, Worn Gundidj (based in Tower Hill and Warrnambool)

Rebecca Wells, Chief Executive of the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre (MRIC)

Matt Dalgleish – Agricultural market analyst at Episode 3

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.

Innovation Ag - Episode 9: Tapping into Circular Economies

Transcript

Kirsten Diprose:

Innovation Ag is made on the lands of the Gunditjmara and Wurundjeri peoples. We acknowledge the traditional owners of country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.

Neale Bennett:

What you got to look at is the whole holistic picture of not just the cost. It's the overall benefit that you're going to get.

Dr Sara Hely:

We're in a changed environment now. This volatility, climate volatility is a reality. W