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Toward enhanced nutrient circularity: Lessons from a multidisciplinary conference
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This study examines approaches to enhanced nutrient circularity through a multidisciplinary lens, drawing on insights from multiple fields to identify practical lessons for improving how nutrients move through food and agricultural systems. The research highlights barriers and opportunities for closing nutrient loops at various scales, with implications for reducing waste and environmental impact.
Abstract The global agricultural sector faces the challenge of ensuring food security while minimizing the environmental impact of conventional practices. Waste‐derived fertilizers have gained attention for their potential to enhance nutrient circularity, yet regulatory, environmental, and agronomic barriers hinder widespread adoption. To address these challenges, a multidisciplinary international conference was held in Lincoln, NE, in September 2024. The event had a dual purpose: (1) to synthesize current technical knowledge and research priorities on circular fertilizers, and (2) to evaluate whether an innovative conference structure, integrating farmer panels, interactive sessions with digital tools, recorded talks for public access, and field visits, could foster cross‐sector learning and long‐term knowledge transfer. This structure captured diverse perspectives in real time and facilitated collaborations between groups that rarely interact, leading to the launch of new interdisciplinary projects. A key outcome was bridging the gap between lab‐based research and real‐world agricultural needs. Research often occurs in controlled settings where limited farmer engagement can obscure practical challenges. By enabling direct dialogue with farmers, the conference aligned scientific priorities with field‐level realities. Recorded talks extended educational reach beyond the event, while in‐person interactions built strong professional networks. Interactive tools, such as shared Google Sheets, encouraged participants to provide live feedback and identify research priorities collectively. This synthesis, aimed at researchers, policymakers, and educators, summarizes both technical insights (e.g., biosolids, struvite, digestate, biochar, and per‐ and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and lessons learned from using the conference as an educational platform. Post‐conference surveys and expert panels identified key future priorities: establishing fertilizer‐grade quality standards, standardizing contaminant risk assessments, expanding long‐term field trials, and enhancing outreach frameworks. Overall, the findings underscore that circular fertilizers are scientifically viable but require coordinated regulatory, agronomic, and communication strategies to accelerate adoption.
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Researchers reviewed digestate management technologies across a range of readiness levels, finding that most current approaches redistribute heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, microplastics, and PFAS into concentrated side streams rather than destroying them, and proposed a structured decision framework linking digestate composition to integrated treatment trains that balance contaminant removal with nutrient recovery.
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This review of recent studies looks at turning waste, like sewage sludge and food scraps, into fertilizer. Some recycled products, like struvite, work reliably as plant food, but others carry risks: heavy metals, pathogens, microplastics, and radioactive contaminants that could end up in soil, crops, and eventually our food and health. More testing and clearer safety rules are needed before these products are widely trusted.
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Scientists tested a new way to recycle farm waste by separating liquid and solid parts, then turning the solids into charcoal-like material called biochar. The liquid parts worked well as fertilizer and produced less harmful greenhouse gas emissions than regular animal waste. This method could help farmers grow food more sustainably while reducing environmental pollution that can affect air and water quality in farming communities.
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