Agricultural Waste Processing: Organic Fertilizer Market and Organic Food Production Aleksander M. Agapkin
Annually, the total amount of agricultural waste in Russia reaches 630-650 million tons. On the one hand, this creates serious environmental and sanitary problems, since almost half of this waste is manure and dung. On the other hand, these wastes represent an irreplaceable source of raw materials for the production of organic fertilizers in volumes, which make it possible to speak of the formation of a new branch of organic fertilizers production on this resource base. The scientific novelty of the approach outlined in the article is the linking of the proposed ways of organizing large-scale processing of agricultural waste and the formation of an organic fertilizer market with the development of an associated rapidly growing industry of organic agricultural production and the market for organic agricultural products. The problem is considered within the framework of an interdisciplinary approach in the relationship of regulatory, environmental, climatic, economic and technological components. The information on the legislative support of the sphere of organic farming and the production of organic fertilizers is presented. Specific measures are proposed to stimulate the interrelated development of the industry of processing waste into organic fertilizers and the industry of producing organic products. Since 2010, the Russian organic market has grown by an average of 10% per year. Moreover, in the period 2015 - 2016. it decreased to 4%, but in 2017-2019 the situation with the development of organic matter recovered, and now there is a steady growth of 8-10% per year. Particular attention is paid to priority technologies for processing waste into organic fertilizers. The plants based on turbo-vortex grinding and drying machines for the production of highly concentrated dry finely dispersed organic fertilizers and plants based on aeration reactors for use in large-scale production are considered.