Resource management: sustainable agriculture solutions

Philippe Maillard, CEO of the SUEZ Recycling and Recovery activities in France.

The growth in the world population is inevitably accompanied by an increase in agricultural production, while the amount of arable land is decreasing significantly under the effect of urbanisation and the water resource is diminishing.

Farmers in all countries are now faced with a double challenge: to improve the productivity and yield of crops while preserving resources. Resource management in general, and of water in particular, will be a critical issue in the years to come. SUEZ here and now stands side by side with farmers, to help them develop sustainable agriculture.

Sustainable agriculture, a world-wide challenge

The data regarding the problem are easy to understand and difficult to resolve. In 2030 the population will be 9 billion inhabitants, against 7 billion today. A growth which, according to the FAO, will entail a 70% increase in agricultural production by 2050. Only the introduction of effective solutions that allow farmers to improve productivity while preserving resources, and especially water (today 70% of water consumption is used for agriculture), will enable to meet this challenge.

Aware of these stakes, SUEZ undertakes to support farmers with a circular economy approach and continuous improvement of their practices: reducing water and fertiliser consumption throughout the production cycle and use of organic matter.

'Our expertise in organic recovery, whether in material or energy, is enabling us to produce each year in France 500,000 tonnes of standardised compost resources, to triple between 2014 and 2017 our methanisation capacity and to increase by one third by 2020 the production of electricity from biogas. To the benefit of the circular economy and environmental performance, SUEZ thus safeguards the resources of its clients in the food processing sectors.'

Philippe Maillard, CEO of the SUEZ Recycling and Recovery activities in France.

Organic matter: a resource to be exploited

The use of organic matter enables new resources to be created: a locally-renewable energy or standardised compost. Advantage: methods of producing compost and energy are complementary and can be carried out side by side.

The Méta Bio Energies site in Combrée (Maine-et-Loire), for example, notably receives and processes biowaste from the Rungis market, about 250 tonnes per month. It produces up to 8,000 MWh electricity from the biowaste from Rungis as well as agriculture and municipal green waste, i.e. the equivalent of the electricity consumption of over 2,000 households. The electricity thus produced is distributed on the grid while the heat is sold to the neighbouring Solairgies plant, specialising in drying industrial and urban sludge. Moreover between 22,000 and 24,000 tonnes of compost are produced per year from this biowaste.

Developing effective agricultural solutions respectful of water and energy resources

SUEZ has joined forces with Terrena, the leading French agricultural cooperative with 22,000 farmers, to create a common company, a true incubator of technical solutions and services for the agricultural world. This company helps farmers better manage water on their farms, to safeguard the productivity and yield of crops by means of a range of innovative solutions. The company develops 2 types of services:

• Optimising water and energy consumption by the food processing industry: helping the cooperative's industrial sites in reducing their consumption over the entire water cycle;
• Utilising agricultural organic matter as a resource, for example by installing micro-methanisation processes in farms with high animal production.