Composting Capitalism: Africa’s Agricultural Waste Is an Economic Failure, Not Just an Environmental One
Agricultural waste in Africa is not a symptom of poverty. It is a symptom of economies that fail to recognise value where it exists. Every year, millions of tonnes of crop residue, spoiled produce, and discarded biomass are left to rot because no one is paid to care. In systems where supply chains are fragmented, infrastructure is brittle, and subsidies are perversely structured, waste is the most rational outcome.
The irony? Africa’s farms leak value while the continent imports fertiliser, animal feed, and energy, goods that could be sourced from what’s already available as raw material. The same cassava peels dumped at roadside stalls in Ondo could power homes or fatten livestock. The tomato pulp rotting in Kano’s markets could feed insect protein farms and become valuable livestock feed or be turned into packaging. But for the most part, they aren’t.
The circular economy, often spotlighted in climate briefings and donor reports, remains largely out of reach in African agriculture. In Europe, it’s marketed as a green lifestyle upgrade for the affluent. In Africa, it’s something else entirely: not a luxury, but a necessity. A way for smallholder farmers to survive depleted soils, energy shortages, and rising costs.
That makes the central paradox even more damning. The continent with the most to gain from circularity is doing the least to institutionalise it. A few pilots in Nairobi or Ibadan are not enough. If circular agriculture is to scale, it must move from TED Talks to trade policy, from the margins of donor projects to the mainstream of industrial strategy.
Why Waste Persists
- Markets price waste at zero. That’s the problem. In theory, agricultural waste in Africa is abundant and valuable. In practice, it is economically invisible. No one is paying farmers for mango pulp, maize husks, or cow dung, not because they lack worth, but because there are no incentives, aggregators, or reliable buyers. As with carbon markets a decade ago, circularity fails to thrive without price signals. Take cassava. Nigeria, the world’s largest producer, generates over 25 million tonnes of peels annually. In 2017, researchers at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) showed that these peels could be processed into high-quality livestock feed within hours of harvest. The economics were promising. The uptake was not. Why? Because value chains were too fragmented to make collection, processing, and distribution viable without large-scale coordination.
- Policymakers still treat circularity as a project, not infrastructure. Governments have been happy to endorse circularity in principle. However, in practice, few have embedded it into agricultural or industrial policy. Composting, biomass conversion, and agri-waste valorisation are treated as donor-funded experiments, not as public services or investable assets. The result: a patchwork of promising pilots with no path to scale. Rwanda is one of the few exceptions. Its national waste-to-energy policy has integrated agri-residue conversion into its climate strategy, with incentives for off-grid biogas producers and public procurement targets for organic fertiliser. It’s a model worth replicating, not because it’s perfect, but because it treats waste as an economic input, not an afterthought.
- What works remains peripheral and poorly understood. Kenya’s black soldier fly farms are a case in point. Firms like Sanergy and InsectiPro convert food waste into high-protein animal feed at commercial scale. The technology is simple. The biological inputs are free. The demand for affordable feed is high. Yet despite their success, such models remain curiously underfunded by public institutions and mostly invisible in agricultural policy. Likewise, in Ghana, Kumasi Compost and Recycling Plant has shown how municipal organic waste can be turned into compost and biogas while creating jobs. However, rather than integrating such models into national agricultural extension programmes or rural employment schemes, they remain siloed as sustainability showcases.
What Circularity Needs Now
At Havilah Strategies, we are not interested in turning banana peels into business cards for donors. We are interested in turning waste into policy, capital, and jobs. The promise of circular agriculture in Africa will not be realised through pilot projects alone. It will require a shift in how governments, investors, and agricultural institutions understand waste itself, not as disposal, but as design failure. Three priorities must drive that shift.
First, policy must get serious. Circularity needs to be built into agricultural, climate, and industrial strategy, not left in the footnotes of donor frameworks. That means public procurement of organic fertiliser. It means mandating waste valorisation as part of food processing licences. It means integrating circularity metrics into national agricultural extension programmes and rural employment targets. In short: treat agri-waste as a production input, not as residue.
Second, finance must follow function. Circular agriculture does not need philanthropy. It needs blended capital with patient terms and strategic backing. Development banks can anchor this by funding processing infrastructure near farm clusters. Governments can do their part by de-risking aggregation logistics through smart subsidies or concessional guarantees. The goal isn’t handouts, it’s catalytic capital that turns waste streams into value chains.
Third, data must make waste visible. Most countries don’t know how much agricultural waste they produce, let alone where or when. Standardising data collection on organic waste flows and mapping them alongside input shortages could help match waste with need: cassava peel to feed mills, tomato pulp to composters, poultry droppings to biogas plants. At Havilah, we advocate for waste audits as a baseline for any circular strategy.
The circular economy is not a trend. It is a necessary redesign of economies that have long treated nature as infinite and waste as invisible. For African agriculture, it offers not just environmental gain but also strategic advantage: lower input costs, higher rural incomes, and greater climate resilience. The future of agriculture and food security on the continent may depend on how well and how fast we can do this.
References
- International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). (2017). From waste to wealth: the innovation turning cassava peels into a growing new industry. Retrieved from ILRI
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation. (n.d.). Insects as part of a circular economy for food: Insectipro/Sanergy. Retrieved from Ellen MacArthur Foundation
- IDRC. (2022). Insects to feed the planet. Retrieved from IDRC
- Citi Newsroom. (2021). KCARP, Africa’s largest recycling plant becomes fully operational. Retrieved from Citi Newsroom
- Africa Energy Portal. (2022). Rwanda: Israeli HomeBiogas to convert agricultural waste into biogas. Retrieved from Africa Energy Portal
- CGIAR. (2020). Transforming cassava peel waste into high quality livestock feed. Retrieved from CGIAR
- The Guardian. (2024). Maggots to the rescue: innovative food waste solution may help wild fish populations too. Retrieved from The Guardian
- FAO. (2022). Mapping of the Black Soldier Fly value chain in East Africa. Retrieved from FAO