Rehabilitating disrupted nutrient cycles through organic residue recycling in agriculture represents a win-win lever, particularly in urban-agricultural areas, with benefits at both ends of the food chain. It carries the promise of enhancing agriculture's eco-efficiency and resilience while reducing environmental pressure in urban and downstream areas. After several decades of largely unsatisfactory attempts to promote recycling practices through ad hoc transfer-of-technology approaches, this paper proposes an epistemological base for RORAL research. A proof of concept case study involving implementation of the RORAL approach in Réunion is presented. This isolated territory with very limited natural resources, particularly arable land, and increasing demographic pressure represents one out of two types of high-potential areas.