Use of organic waste in agriculture

conférence invitée (Key lecture)<br/>conférence invitée (Key lecture)

English. In France, 330 106 tons of organic wastes coming from agriculture (animal manure), industries and urban communities, are yearly recycled on cultivated soils (average of 11 ton/ha year on all the cultivated soils). Most manure have been always returned to soils but only 13% of the urban wastes on a total of potential 30 to 40% are recycled in agriculture. The French regulation requests the increase of composting and recycling up to 35% in 2012 and 45% in 2015. On the other hand, the decrease of organic matter content in soil is one of the threats towards soils that European Union has retained in the preparation of the Soil Directive regulation to control soil quality and prevent soil degradation. On the other hand in France, agriculture is geographically distributed and in many areas animal breeding has disappeared. In these regions, urban composts or other kinds of organic wastes represent valuable sources of organic matter for soils. In order to favour the development of recycling of organic wastes in agriculture, their agronomic value must be better known and their potential environmental impacts monitored in long-term field experiments. The presentation will focus on the effect of repeated organic waste application on potential carbon storage in soil and its simulation and on the control of organic pollutant potentially present in the organic wastes. Up to 60% of the applied organic carbon can be stored in soil and the potential efficiency of organic waste can be predicted based on their biochemical composition. Some persistent organic pollutants (PAH, PCB) and other more easily biodegradable (Nonylphenols, Phtalates and Linearalkylbenzene sulfonates) have been also measured in organic amendments, soil and crops in the field experiments and no accumulation have been observed. The waste treatments should be optimized to favour their dissipation before application. A model has been developed to simulate both organic matter and organic pollutant dynamics during waste composting