Application of Biomass in Agricultural Circular Economy

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Economics, Policies and Rural Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 December 2025 | Viewed by 909

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Economics, Koszalin University of Technology, 75-453 Koszalin, Polnad
Interests: tenergy consumption; sustainable development; events; local development; green innovation; energy transition; renewable energy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Economics, Koszalin University of Technology, 75-453 Koszalin, Polnad
Interests: renewable energy; agriculture biomass; circular economy; tourism; events and festivals; local and regional development, rural development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Implementing a circular economy approach is an alternative to the inefficient and environmentally unsustainable linear economy model, aiming to stop the growing trend of raw material consumption and decouple economic growth from raw material consumption. Agriculture is one of the key sectors in implementing the circular economy due to the raw material used, which is organic waste.

Circular economy in agriculture can contribute to improving the economic results of agricultural activities, as well as reducing pressure on the environment by reducing resource inputs and waste generation. Key aspects in the area of circular agriculture should be the following: ensuring the health of agroecosystems, avoiding the waste of essential resources, prioritizing the use of natural resources based on human needs, recycling agroecosystem by-products, and minimizing energy consumption and using renewable energy sources. Therefore, the circular economy in agriculture is an economic model that respects the environment and enables the creation of new business and employment opportunities, while having a positive impact on the well-being of society.

In this context, the aim of this Special Issue is to assess the role of biomass in the circular economy in agriculture. This Special Issue encourages interdisciplinary research in various fields of agricultural, economic, geographical, social and environmental sciences. All types of articles are welcome, such as original research, reviews, and opinions.

Dr. Luiza Ossowska
Dr. Dorota Janiszewska
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • agricultural biomass
  • circular agriculture
  • sustainable agriculture
  • sustainable development
  • policy perspective
  • green energy economy
  • biomass business model
  • environmental impact
  • bioeconomy
  • sustainability
  • recycling
  • resilience
  • agroecosystems
  • renewable energy sources

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

32 pages, 444 KB  
Article
Does Digital Literacy Increase Farmers’ Willingness to Adopt Livestock Manure Resource Utilization Modes: An Empirical Study from China
by Xuefeng Ma, Yahui Li, Minjuan Zhao and Wenxin Liu
Agriculture 2025, 15(15), 1661; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15151661 - 1 Aug 2025
Viewed by 510
Abstract
Enhancing farmers’ digital literacy is both an inevitable requirement for adapting to the digital age and an important measure for promoting the sustainable development of livestock and poultry manure resource utilization. This study surveyed and obtained data from 1047 farm households in Ningxia [...] Read more.
Enhancing farmers’ digital literacy is both an inevitable requirement for adapting to the digital age and an important measure for promoting the sustainable development of livestock and poultry manure resource utilization. This study surveyed and obtained data from 1047 farm households in Ningxia and Gansu, two provinces in China that have long implemented livestock manure resource utilization policies, from December 2023 to January 2024, and employed the binary probit model to analyze how digital literacy influences farmers’ willingness to adopt two livestock manure resource utilization modes, as well as to analyze the moderating role of three policy regulations. This paper also explores the heterogeneous results in different village forms and income groups. The results are as follows: (1) Digital literacy significantly and positively impacts farmers’ willingness to adopt both the “household collection” mode and the “livestock community” mode. For every one-unit increase in a farmer’s digital literacy, the probability of farmers’ willingness to adopt the “household collection” mode rises by 22 percentage points, and the probability of farmers’ willingness to adopt the “livestock community” mode rises by 19.8 percentage points. After endogeneity tests and robustness checks, the conclusion still holds. (2) Mechanism analysis results indicate that guiding policy and incentive policy have a positive moderation effect on the link between digital literacy and the willingness to adopt the “household collection” mode. Meanwhile, incentive policy also positively moderates the relationship between digital literacy and the willingness to adopt the “livestock community” mode. (3) Heterogeneity analysis results show that the positive effect of digital literacy on farmers’ willingness to adopt two livestock manure resource utilization modes is stronger in “tight-knit society” rural areas and in low-income households. (4) In further discussion, we find that digital literacy removes the information barriers for farmers, facilitating the conversion of willingness into behavior. The value of this study is as follows: this paper provides new insights for the promotion of livestock and poultry manure resource utilization policies in countries and regions similar to the development process of northwest China. Therefore, enhancing farmers’ digital literacy in a targeted way, strengthening the promotion of grassroots policies on livestock manure resource utilization, formulating diversified ecological compensation schemes, and establishing limited supervision and penalty rules can boost farmers’ willingness to adopt manure resource utilization models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of Biomass in Agricultural Circular Economy)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop