Abstract
Current food systems present several shortcomings that hinder their long-term sustainability leading to depletion of natural resources, land degradation and biodiversity loss. Circular Economy (CE) promises to mitigate these problems, by regenerating the ecosystems, enhancing production efficiency, and alleviating ecological pressures. Farms implement circularity in agriculture through renewable resources use, food waste prevention, biomasses valorization and regenerative practices. In particular, food waste prevention alleviates ecological pressures from production by enhancing output efficiency per unit of input. Farm level data are essential for understanding the mechanisms guiding CE diffusion, yet data availability is limited. This study tries to fill the knowledge gap by providing a new representative dataset on Italian farms. Data were collected through a structured survey administered to 1,200 farms. The dataset comprises 443 variables covering farm characteristics, surplus and waste generation and valorization, regenerative practices, use of circular inputs, and food waste performance providing the first granular overview of CE and food waste management practices in agriculture.
Similar content being viewed by others
Survey data on firm-level surplus food and food waste management from the Italian food processing industry
Promoting sustainable food production through waste reduction and valorization: a California case study
An economic perspective of the circular bioeconomy in the food and agricultural sector
Data availability
The dataset is available upon request through figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29610860.
Code availability
No custom code has been used for this paper.
References
FAO. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Agrifood Systems – Global, Regional and Country Trends. https://openknowledge.fao.org/items/74bfebdb-3272-4e6a-98f4-ee36c7146d44 (2024).
FAO. Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands. https://www.fao.org/land-water/land/land-assessment/en (2013).
Prăvălie, R. et al. A unifying modelling of multiple land degradation pathways in Europe. Nat Commun 15, 3862 (2024).
Zhao, J. et al. Biodiversity responses to agricultural practices in cropland and natural habitats. Science of the Total Environment 922 (2024).
Newbold, T. et al. Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Nature 520 (2015).
Tilman, D. et al. Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change. Science (1979) 292 (2001).
Poore, J. & Nemecek, T. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science (1979) 360 (2018).
Peng, J., Baležentis, T., Streimikiene, D., Dabkiene, V. & Agnusdei, G. P. Circular Economy in Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review. Sustainable Development, https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.70017 (2025).
Velasco-Muñoz, J. F., Aznar-Sánchez, J. A., López-Felices, B. & Román-Sánchez, I. M. Circular economy in agriculture. An analysis of the state of research based on the life cycle. Sustainable Production and Consumption 34, 257–270, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.09.017 (2022).
De Boer, M. & Van Ittersum, M. K. Circularity in Agricultural Production. https://edepot.wur.nl/470625.
Arowosegbe, O. B. et al. Combating food waste in the agricultural supply chain: A systematic review of supply chain optimization strategies and their sustainability benefits. World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews 24, 122–140 (2024).
Food Waste Index Report 2024. Think Eat Save: Tracking Progress to Halve Global Food Waste (2024).
OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2024-2033, https://doi.org/10.1787/4c5d2cfb-en (OECD, 2024).
UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021 (2021).
Valentini, G., Randellini, N., Scotti, G. & Garrone, P. Survey data on firm-level surplus food and food waste management from the Italian food processing industry. Scientific Data 12 (2025).
Carletto, G., Jolliffe, D. & Banerjee, R. From Tragedy to Renaissance Improving Agricultural Data for Better Policies. http://econ.worldbank.org. (2015).
Garrone, P., Melacini, M. & Perego, A. Opening the black box of food waste reduction. Food Policy 46, 129–139 (2014).
Eurostat. Food waste and food waste prevention by NACE Rev. 2 activity – tonnes of fresh mass. Eurostat (2025).
Akkas, A. & Gaur, V. OM Forum — Reducing Food Waste: An Operations Management Research Agenda. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3833026 (2021).
Corrado, S. et al. Food waste accounting methodologies: Challenges, opportunities, and further advancements. Global Food Security 20, 93–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2019.01.002 (2019).
Bonilla Cedrez, C., Andeweg, K. & Casu, F. A. M. Circular Food Systems around the World: Exploring Concepts, Ideas and Opportunities, https://doi.org/10.18174/638397 (2023).
Esposito, B., Sessa, M. R., Sica, D. & Malandrino, O. Towards circular economy in the agri-food sector. A systematic literature review. Sustainability (Switzerland) 12, 18, 7410. https://doi.org/10.3390/SU12187401 (2020).
Sherwood, J. The significance of biomass in a circular economy. Bioresource Technology 300, 122755. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2020.122755 (2020).
Ghisellini, P., Cialani, C. & Ulgiati, S. A review on circular economy: The expected transition to a balanced interplay of environmental and economic systems. J Clean Prod 114, 11–32 (2016).
Istat. Tavole Di Dati. Le Imprese Agricole in Italia Nel Registro Asia (2022).
Casley, D. & Kumar, K. The Collection, 9456 Analysis, and Use of-Monitoring and Evaluation Data A World Bank Publication’.
Friedman, N. et al. Understanding Farmers’ Data Collection Practices on Small-to-Medium Farms for the Design of Future Farm Management Information Systems. Proc ACM Hum Comput Interact 8 (2024).
Joensuu, K., Hartikainen, H., Karppinen, S., Jaakkonen, A. K. & Kuoppa-aho, M. Developing the collection of statistical food waste data on the primary production of fruit and vegetables. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 28, 24618–24627 (2021).
European Commission. Delegated decision – 2019/1597 – EN – EUR-Lex. http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec_del/2019/1597/oj (2019).
Rótolo, G. C. et al. Perception and awareness of circular economy options within sectors related to agriculture in Argentina. J Clean Prod 373 (2022).
Papargyropoulou, E. et al. The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste. J Clean Prod 76, 106–115 (2014).
Hanne Møller, A. et al. Report on Review of (Food) Waste Reporting Methodology and Practice (2014).
Istat. 7° Censimento Generale Agricoltura. https://www.istat.it/comunicato-stampa/7-censimento-generale-dellagricoltura-integrazione-dei-primi-risultati/ (2022).
Istat. Tavole Di Dati. Le Imprese Agricole in Italia Nel Registro Asia – Anno 2021. https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/278807on10/09/2023 (2022).
Corbetta, P. Metodologia E Tecniche Della Ricerca Sociale. (Il Mulino, Bologna, 1999).
Randellini, N., Scotti, G., Valentini, G. & Garrone, P. Survey data on farm-level Circular Economy practices in Italian agriculture. A focus on surplus food and waste, https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29610860 (2025).
Kieu, M. et al. An open dataset on individual perceptions of transport policies. Sci Data 11 (2024).
Istat. 7th General Survey for Agriculture- Data Tables. https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/it/dw/categories/IT1,DATAWAREHOUSE,1.0/UP_ACC_AGRICO/IT1,93_48_DF_DCCN_VAAGSIPET_1,1.0 (2022).
Istat. Produzione e Valore Aggiunto Ai Prezzi Base. https://esploradati.istat.it/databrowser/#/it/dw/categories/IT1,DATAWAREHOUSE,1.0/UP_ACC_AGRICO/IT1,93_48_DF_DCCN_VAAGSIPET_1,1.0 (2024).
López-Cabarcos, M. Á., Piñeiro-Chousa, J., Quiñoá-Piñeiro, L. & López-Pérez, M. L. Water and waste management strategies as drivers of the financial performance of food companies. Technol Forecast Soc Change 200, 123138 (2024).
Majbar, Z. et al. Farmers’ Perceptions and Willingness of Compost Production and Use to Contribute to Environmental Sustainability. Sustainability 13, 13335 (2021).
Venkatesh, V., Thong, J. & Xu, X. Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology: A Synthesis and the Road Ahead. J Assoc Inf Syst 17, 328–376 (2016).
Davis, F. D. et al. Percieved Usefulness, Percieved Ease of Use, and Acceptance of Information System Technology”, MIS Quarterly”. Vol. 13, No. 3, hlm.319-339. Davis, (1989) 13 (1989).
Amin, M. K. & Li, J. Applying Farmer Technology Acceptance Model to Understand Farmer’s Behavior Intention to use ICT Based Microfinance Platform: A Comparative analysis between Bangladesh and China. in 13th Wuhan International Conference on E-Business, WHICEB 2014 (2014).
Case, S. D. C., Oelofse, M., Hou, Y., Oenema, O. & Jensen, L. S. Farmer perceptions and use of organic waste products as fertilisers – A survey study of potential benefits and barriers. Agric Syst 151 (2017).
Bagagiolo, G., Vigoroso, L., Pampuro, N. & Cavallo, E. The Role of Social Interaction and Personal Characteristics in Affecting the Adoption of Compost from Organic Fraction of Municipal Solid Waste in Italy. Agronomy 12 (2022).
Acknowledgements
This work has received funding from Fondazione Banco Alimentare ETS (FBA) and was carried out within the Agritech National Research Center and received funding from the European Union Next-GenerationEU (PIANO NAZIONALE DI RIPRESA E RESILIENZA (PNRR) – MISSIONE 4 COMPONENTE 2, INVESTIMENTO 1.4 – D.D. 1032 17/06/2022, CN00000022). This manuscript reflects only the authors’ views and opinions, neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be considered responsible for them.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
N.R.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Data representativeness, Ethical Validation, Technical Validation, Writing. G.S.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data Collection, Data representativeness, Technical Validation, Dataset management, Writing. G.V.: Methodology, Investigation, Writing, Data curation, Validation. P.G.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Funding acquisition, Supervision.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information (download PDF )
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Randellini, N., Scotti, G., Valentini, G. et al. Survey data on Circular Economy practices in Italian farms with a focus on surplus food and food waste.
Sci Data (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06942-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06942-9
Source: Ecology - nature.com
