Agricultural Innovation Board urges deeper study of agricultural plastics, pilots EPR approaches

Morgan Griffith, an agrochemical program manager with the Division of Plant Industry at the Agency of A, briefed legislators on the Agricultural Innovation Board’s 2025 work and early 2026 plans, saying the board is expanding beyond its early focus on neonicotinoid-treated seeds to study agricultural plastics and end‑of‑life options.

The board emphasized that current recycling options for items such as bale wrap, seed bags and nursery pots are limited and fragile. Griffith said the board’s 2025 survey efforts found 43 northeastern growers responded to a UVM-distributed survey but only nine were Vermont farmers; top concerns were disposal of farm materials and microplastics, and farmers cited limited availability and lack of knowledge about alternatives as barriers to change. "Forty‑three farmers completed the survey but only nine were from Vermont," she said.

Why it matters: agricultural plastics are bulky, often contaminated by soil or feed residues, and farmers lack convenient, local options for collection and cleaning. Pilot programs and existing efforts—such as pesticide‑container recycling run by the Agricultural Container Recycling Council (ACRC) with RPM Eco, a nursery pot recycling program run by the Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association in partnership with Pride’s Corner Farm, and a Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance pilot for bale wrap—demonstrate some pathways but also show how easily markets can fail when end buyers disappear.

Griffith described the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance pilot in which participating farms fill a supersack with clean, dry bale wrap for pickup, compaction at a solid‑waste district, and shipment to a recycler. She said one intended receiving company later stopped accepting film after losing an end market for the resin, forcing the pilot to pivot. Griffith said RPM Eco early estimates showed collection of about 5,000 pounds of pesticide containers from Vermont in a pilot year, but that figures and markets remain uncertain.

Technical and market hurdles dominate: processors require material that is clean and dry, washing systems have limits, and storage needs and transportation costs are high. That makes some plastics, especially bale wrap, difficult to recycle at scale. Griffith told the panel that biodegradable or compostable alternatives face a separate trade‑off: materials that meet durability and barrier needs on the farm are often incompatible with standards for industrial compostability, and organic‑certification rules can treat some biodegradable products as soil amendments, limiting adoption.

Looking to policy options, AIB members reviewed extended producer responsibility (EPR) approaches, pointing to Quebec and Canadian models where manufacturers finance end‑of‑life management and national producer responsibility organizations ("pro" groups such as Clean Farms) coordinate collection and recycling. Griffith summarized EPR lessons: do a waste study to quantify volumes, identify recyclers and collection sites, pilot regionally, allow at least two years for implementation, and plan for enforcement and financing mechanisms so manufacturers participate and programs are sustainable.

Griffith said the board has also learned from long‑running private or cooperative programs, including an Organic Valley vegetable‑mulch program that became farmer‑funded after initial company support, which the board cited as estimating roughly 8–15 pounds of agricultural plastic per cow per year in dairy systems. She said AIB wants to continue learning from pilots, industry partners, and cross‑jurisdictional examples before drafting firm policy recommendations.

Next steps: AIB is expanding 2026 survey outreach—handing short surveys out at grower meetings, offering electronic options and scannable codes, and inviting farmer panels to provide deeper testimony. The board plans to return with further findings and a formal report in January 2027; AIB also scheduled an update from pilot organizer Mike Snow in May 2026.

At the end of the session legislators asked about paraquat responsibilities the board will have, the need for tonnage studies to put plastic volumes in context, and membership changes on AIB (Griffith noted a recent vacancy following the death of the board’s toxicologist). The committee recessed pending follow‑up presentations and the AIB’s January 2027 report.