A great deal of harvested onion is worthless waste due to damage to the product during harvesting and therefore low quality. A bioeconomic approach to change this low quality product to useful high quality products and to change an economic loss to profit and also avoiding biological damage to humans and to the environment would be:
- Press low quality onions in a press machine to get onion juice and onion residue.
- By fermentation, the juice is changed to nutritional vinegar containing minerals, amino acids and organic acids.
- By composting, the residue is recycled for onion cultivation with the followingpositive externalities:
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Biological: not using fertilizers means producing healthy food therefore avoiding diseases in the present and future generations.
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Biological: not using fertilizers means avoiding chemical run-off into the water system therefore avoiding health hazards to humans and to the environment.
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Economic: not using fertilizers means saving money ( onion cultivation requires a great deal of fertilizers.)
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Economic: using recycled waste saves money and advances sustainable agriculture.
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This bioeconomic scheme by which biological and economic integration leads to a bioeconomic outcome can be used for all agricultural waste thus transforming useless waste to useful resource-rich non-waste encouraging resource conserva- tion and sustainability