Committee reviews bill recasting fertilizer chapter to regulate ‘beneficial substances’

Michael Grady, legislative counsel, briefed the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry on draft legislation to revise the state’s fertilizer and lime chapter by folding plant amendments, soil amendments and plant biostimulants under a single term: "beneficial substance." The proposal would require registration, labeling, and give the Agency of Agriculture inspection and enforcement authority; an effective date of July 1, 2025, was discussed.

Why it matters: Committee members were told the change aims to create a uniform, flexible regulatory umbrella so the agency need not repeatedly return to the Legislature as new product types appear. The draft aligns state definitions with recommendations from the Association of American Plant Food Control Officials and mirrors language used by other states, the counsel said.

Grady told the committee that the draft replaces multiple product categories with the term "beneficial substance," defined in the bill as "any substance or compound other than primary, secondary, and micro plant nutrients (fertilizer) and excluding pesticides that can be demonstrated by scientific research to be beneficial to one or more species of…