Sustainability Challenges and Risks from Waste and By-Products from Agriculture and Food Production

Dear Colleagues,

The (global) sourcing and production of agrarian products (food and fiber) has received broad research attention in a range of scientific disciplines, not least human geography. Especially their global chains and networks, including social aspects tied to production, distribution, and consumption, have received attention. There is also a growing body of literature on the geographies, systems, and networks of waste, like e-waste and issues of sustainability.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together papers dealing with an often-neglected part of food production: byproducts and waste from agriculture and food production. Byproducts and waste in the sense of this Special Issue might, for example, be residues from livestock farming like manure or waste from slaughterhouses, as well as byproducts from the processing of food like peelings or shells or wastewater.

These byproducts are essential but neglected parts of the production process and of the production network. They often resemble burdens for the environment (e.g., soil, water) or the local population and are often overlooked as well as not included into the pricing of the commodity, therefore contributing to unequal developments and probably become a risk for regional development. Additionally, consumers tend to overlook or dissociate the sustainability risks of the production from the food product, and they are not fully recognized in, e.g., sustainability or life-cycle assessments. The Special Issue aims at collecting empirical case studies but also welcomes contributions to a conceptual debate on a more inclusive discussion of the sustainability of agriculture and food production that also takes into account its byproducts and side-products and their spatial relations.

apl. Prof. Dr. Kim Philip Schumacher
Guest Editor

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• food production
• production waste
• risks
• food production
• regional development
• dissociation