Farm by-products

9 Sept

This is part of our series on upcycling.

Farm by-products are all the stalks, stems, roots, leaves and other parts that particular crops aren’t typically cultivated for, that aren’t sold, and/or that aren’t even typically thought of as edible. Think cereal stalks, tomato leaves, and brassica stems. These by-products are a potentially huge untapped resource: for cereal crops alone, some 2.8 billion tonnes of farm by-products are produced globally each year.¹ By expanding our perspective on edibility, we can utilise these by-products to produce more deliciousness from the food we are already producing, like plant sources of umami.

This is a different challenge to the equally important one of reducing on-farm food waste and loss—1.2 billion tonnes, or 15.3% of food produced globally—caused by leaving perfectly edible food in the field due to surpluses, order cancellations, failure to meet cosmetic expectations, and losses due to pests or diseases.² We also define farm by-products separately from fruit and veg by-products produced in processing and production facilities and domestic and commercial kitchens—even if they come from the same plant—because the factors that shape these wastes differ in each site.

Various auspicious fates might await farm by-products today. They can be used to improve soil health, by composting them or simply leaving them in the field as stubble or mulch. Using them as animal feed can substitute other crops that could otherwise feed people directly. Depending on the context, these long-standing uses may well make the most sense. However, upcycling farm by-products into delicious food offers an additional option and could create extra revenue streams for farmers without growing anything new.

Here we present some of our culinary research into ways we can better utilise farm by-products:

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