Farmers are the lifeblood of the country’s food system. Yet, these types of businesses also need to turn a profit. This can be achieved through maximising your resources and reducing losses along the way. It’s called zero-waste farming.
Zero-waste farming is the principle of minimising the loss of resources and optimising their use. It emphasises practical strategies that reduce waste and contribute to a more profitable farm.
The same “reduce, reuse and recycle” mantra applies to this agricultural approach, as it reduces the amount of waste generated, reusing what would usually be discarded and recycling waste into a usable product.
Zero-waste Practices in Agriculture
1. Composting Organic Waste
Composting is one of the most well-known and possibly easiest zero-waste practices to implement. Farmers can use crop residue and manure from livestock to create a composting heap that improves soil fertility without using chemical fertilisers.
2. Water Recycling
Rycling your water can take on two methods: Firstly, it can look like collecting greywater and using it for irrigation. It can also look like using a biological filter that cleans the greywater so it may be used again.
3. Reducing Water Waste
Water loss or wastage can be reduced by turning to irrigation methods that improve effective irrigation with as little water as necessary. Drip irrigation systems are just one of these examples.
4. Repurposing Crop Residues
If composting is not viable on your farm, why not try using crop residue as animal feed, mulch or bioenergy? These alternative uses prevent valuable resources from being destroyed for no reason.
5. Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Farmers are seeing a push worldwide to reduce the use of chemical pesticides such as glyphosate. After numerous poisonings early in 2025, South Africans saw the heartbreaking impact these chemicals can have. Not only is using other eco-friendly pest control methods like natural predators and companion planting safer for the environment, but it is also safer for humans along the value chain.
6. Utilising Precision Agriculture
Precision farming optimises yield, but because it emphasises optimal use of limited resources, it also has an impact on reducing waste.
How To Get Started
Implementing a zero-waste policy in your approach to farming is more than a trend; it’s contributing towards sustainable farming that manages input costs.
Bite-sized: Start with one small area, such as composting or recycling. Ace that before moving to the next goal. It’s better to approach any changes step-by-step than to take on too much, fail and be discouraged.
Educate your staff: Zero-waste farming is a team effort. Train your staff on what this approach is and why it’s important. This will help you get buy-in from them and ensure they are on board with the farm’s efforts.
Track progress: To determine if your efforts are working, monitor and measure your progress.
Start from where you are: It wouldn’t make financial sense to suddenly purchase livestock to generate manure for fertilising crops if you are a crop farmer. Rather, see what you have, how you can optimise it and reduce loss without needing to spend additional money.
Benefits for Farmers
Being good to the environment is noble and all, but as a business owner, you must be concerned about your bottom line. If zero-waste farming doesn’t sound convincing yet, you need to familiarise yourself with the acronym TRUE. It stands for Total Resource Use and Efficiency and helps businesses improve their bottom line while reducing waste by focusing on upstream initiatives.
Directly related to zero-waste farming, TRUE allows farming businesses to:
- Address inefficiencies that cost the business money.
- Improves public health as well as that of the employees.
- Fosters a culture of not wasting precious resources.
Introducing this approach to agriculture makes sense to the business. Not only are you able to stretch every rand for what it’s worth, but you will be able to increase your percentage of profit in the long run. Start small and ensure you receive buy-in from your farm workers; this way, you will ensure that you benefit optimally.
To find out more about improving profitability in farming, read about How Regenerative Agriculture Aids Profitability for Farmers.
