4S1: Introduction - The Circulair Food Systems network: exploring opportunities for food security by circularity in different regions in the world

Abstract

Circular food systems (CFS) are food systems in which waste streams are minimised and inevitable waste is utilised in processes of production of food, energy or non-food products. Such circular food systems apply practices and technologies that minimise the input of finite resources (e.g. phosphate rock, fossil fuel and land), encourage the use of regenerative ones (e.g. wind and solar energy), prevent leakage of natural resources from the food system (e.g. nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P)), and stimulate recycling of inevitable resource losses in a way that adds the highest value to the food system (De Boer and Van Ittersum, 2018; Van Zanten et al., 2019). It is a whole-system approach that looks at the individual parts of the food system as elements of an integrated entity. Such a food system approach is more than the sum of its parts as interaction between the different parts of the food system results in additional resource efficiency.