For Adecoagro, organic byproducts can be a source of energy and nutrients. Founded in 2002, the agro-industrial company operates across Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, integrating crop and dairy farming with rice processing, sugar, ethanol and renewable energy production. At its Ivinhema mill in Brazil, Adecoagro also applies this approach to agricultural machinery. Sugarcane vinasse—a liquid byproduct of ethanol distillation—is processed to produce biogas, part of which is upgraded to biomethane and used at the same site to fuel the company’s vehicle fleet, including a New Holland T6.180 Methane Power tractor. In this way, a byproduct of ethanol production becomes a renewable fuel for the mill’s machinery. At its Angélica and Ivinhema mills in central Brazil, Adecoagro generates more than one million MWh of electricity per year from sugarcane bagasse—the fibrous material left after the juice has been extracted. High-pressure steam boilers and turbogenerators convert the bagasse into electricity, part of which is used in the company’s operations, with the surplus supplied to the national grid. According to Adecoagro, the annual output is enough to supply approximately 300,000 households. Adecoagro applies similar resource-recovery principles at other locations. In Argentina’s Santa Fe province, manure from dairy cows is processed in biodigesters to produce biogas, which fuels generators that produce electricity. The nutrient-rich digestate is returned to the fields as fertilizer to grow fodder for the cows, creating a circular production model. From its earliest days nearly a quarter century ago, Adecoagro has prioritized operational efficiency. And there are many more examples, from rice to sugar and ethanol, where it has applied circular economy principles on a massive scale. “We seek to combine agricultural productivity, industrial efficiency and sustainability, always with a long-term vision,” says Mariano De Santis, Procurement Director at Adecoagro. “The differentiating factor of our model lies precisely in the integration between field and industry, which allows us to capture value throughout the entire chain and adjust the production mix according to market opportunities.” The Ivinhema project was launched in 2021 as part of Adecoagro’s efforts to improve resource efficiency. For De Santis, its value lies in treating vinasse as a resource from which the company can recover both energy and nutrients. “Vinasse is not a waste product, but rather a byproduct of the ethanol production process,” says De Santis. “We return nutrients to the field and, at the same time, we produce renewable fuel. It's a clear example of a circular economy, where we can extract even more value from the resources generated by the operation itself.”