Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Morgan Griffith across the street. I don't know, do you work across the street?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I do.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Okay. All right, well, morning, and thanks for joining us. This report that we get annually is on our page. I I think your testimony is also there.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yes. Yep. I sent it to Patricia this week.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'll turn it over to you and however you want to proceed.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Sure. So, yep, for the record, my name is Morgan Griffith. I'm an agrochemical program manager with the Division of Plant Industry at the Agency of Ag. So I was quickly just asked to give a little background on the Ag Innovation Board, we call it AIB for short. And I think the best way for me to show that quickly is through our website. And just to give you so it was formed through legislation that was passed in 2021. So it was officially started in 2022, and it was billed as a replacement to the Vermont Pesticide Advisory Council or VPAC. And however, it more it wasn't a one for one replacement. Right? So the goal of the AIB is to have a more holistic approach and to expand beyond just pesticides. So here you can see it has the legislation outlines 12 different charges of all the things that we can look into in addition to anything that comes up. So probably for the past two and a half years, what you've heard from me and anything from the board has been neonicotinoid treated seeds, neonicotinoid pesticides, right, and the BMPs. So that's what you've heard from us in previous reports for the majority of the work that we've been doing. But other things are on here, including plant biostimulants and also ag plastics, ag waste, biodegradable alternatives to ag plastic. And that's the majority of what we're going talk about today. The group is made up of people from Agency of Ag, Agency of Natural Resources, crop consultant, soil biologist. We have organic farming representative, conventional dairy, fruit and veggie farmer. We have non dairy livestock farmer. We have an environmental advocacy organization represented and UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: And are those 13 people all appointed by the secretary?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yes. Yep.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: They serve three year, five year?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So the way that it's written, the initial one, we had some one in two years and then three years. So the majority of them are three years. And we've had some turnover, and I do have at the end of my presentation of membership turnover starting in 2026. But also, had some turnover in 2025.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I imagine that the names of the board members would be familiar largely to us.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. So we definitely Yeah, we we have cycled since that original 2022 membership list. We've got some new people in and out. And as you know, it's especially because we were charged with that NEONIC research and studying and making those recommendations. We met in those first two or three years every month. And so it was quite a big time commitment for members. So in 2025, we started and we're continuing 2026 meeting every other month. The statute requires us that we meet at least four times a year. So we've met six times in '25, and that's the plan for '26 as well.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Did we designate this list of members?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, so this is just pulled from statute. Just kind of the website just makes it easier to read.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Representative O'Brien. So, Morgan, how

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: can we find the current sitting members?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, so that's in the end of the report. And I also have it, and I can jump to those slides if you want to see right now. See it right. Yep. So in 2025, we. Welcome to new members, so we had Doctor. Sean Lucas join us as a soil biologist. Windham Sue Harper had held that for the first from 2022, basically, until '25. We also welcomed Leon Course for an organic dairy farmer in 2025. And Jamie Hamilton joined us at the tail end of 2025 as a representative for nondairy livestock farming. And then in 2026, we've welcomed Emilie Mae from the Xerces Society as our representative for an environmental advocacy group. And we've welcomed Doctor. Joshua Faulkner from the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So those names are not yet on this.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Right. Because it's, sorry, I kept it in 2025 report. So they've just been appointed, in '26, probably in February or March was their appointments.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I just have these. Well, thank you. That was, I think, very helpful background to stick around this in the history and what the board looks like.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Sure. Yeah. Happy. And anytime, just keep stopping me. You know, this is just so it seems like a succinct story to tell you guys, you know, but obviously, if you have questions, just ask and I'll hopefully have the answer. So in 2025, we met six times. We had testimony and witnesses from internal, and external subject matter experts came to talk to us. Everything is up on that website. So, every meeting is recorded. All the minutes and the materials presentations that we hear are available online to everybody. So I'm going to start, so part of that statute that form the AIB requires the board to survey farmers every year. So this slide you've seen when I came in to talk about the twenty twenty four AIP report. But it frames the beginning of the story of how we ended up where we were for 2025. And so in this survey, we asked two questions. And you can see that in 2024, the top two environmental impacts of concern when using AG inputs were non target pollinator exposure and disposal of farm materials like tires, pesticides and plastics. So the same two questions were asked in 2025 as part of a survey that was disseminated by the UVM Entomology Research Lab to high tunnel growers in the Northeast Region. So 43 farmers completed the survey, but only nine were from Vermont. The Vermont responses did follow the same trends as everyone, all the other farmers in the Northeast Region. And so the top two environmental impacts of concern were disposal of farm materials and microplastics. And the challenges to reducing the use of the ag inputs that causes the farmers environmental concern were availability and lack of knowledge of alternatives. In the 2025 report, members thought it was really important to include that board members understand that these survey results don't fully encompass all areas of concern or the issues of most importance to Vermont farmers, especially since 2025 was a year of significant challenges kind of highlighted by the drought. Also, the AIV wanted to recognize the low participation in this survey and so are developing continuing to develop survey strategies that help increase participation, but also gives the board information that's helpful and reflects issues of importance to Vermont farmers. Teaser for '26. Yeah, go ahead.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah. How do you contact farmers to find out if they want to fill out your survey or not?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. So obviously, this one, we outsourced it, right? So in '25, we said, okay, people are already doing a survey. Just add our two questions in there, which is part of the reason why it was only two questions.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: People meaning some other agricultural.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Right. UBM mentioned Mollie. They were already doing a survey that they've done historically.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: This year, what AIB has we're trying, right, is we are we have a piece of paper and we went to every grower meeting this winter and we're like, you need to fill out this piece of paper before you can leave the room. Yeah. So that's what we've done. So we made the circuit. So any time our field agents went to a meeting, any time I went to a meeting, any time our members went to a meeting, they brought the paper and filled it out. So we do have, I think I just presented last month to AIB, I think we have maybe 35 so far this year, but we're gonna continue doing that throughout the whole 2026. We did make it electronically accessible also, and so we put it in AgriVue and things like that with the scannable code. I did get somebody you know, we put it in AgriVue, cut the newspaper out, and mail it back to me. Yeah. And so we're just trying to make it so that it's you have it right there. It's easy and convenient. We don't want it to be a pain Yeah. Basically is what their strategy has been so far. I just thought it might be

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: hard to reach all of them. It is. They're busy with things.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: And I just thought, what's the way that works? It sounds like

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: we don't know exactly.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Lots of things and hoping one of them or all of them in enough pieces will add up to working.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. And the questions too are you know, so you'll see where we're netting out, right, is I'm alluding to we did a lot with ag plastics. So that's what the questions were for 2026 is mostly about ag plastics. We also worked a little bit with Ben and Jerry's this year. They do a metrics kind of collecting data from their caring dairy participants. And so same thing like we did this year. We just asked to piggyback on current things that people are already asking questions. Hey, can you just add two more questions that we can use the data from? And so Bennington's Caring Dairy did include those questions this year in their service.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm just wondering about the universe of farmers that you're trying to reach. The 2024 slide that you started with was people who apply pesticides. Currently, are you trying to reach any farmer or is it the same group?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So for 2026, any farmer because it's ag plastic. Right? So we were, you know, dairy farmers, vegetable farmers. We haven't gone you know, maple tubing is also so sugaring association. So we're a little bit expanded for this year's survey goals, just because we're a little more expanded in our scope rather than just Munich users or something like that.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Representative Nelson. Have you reached out to

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: your conservation districts in the state to help with these surveys? Because they tend to get to a lot of farms,

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: diverse farms.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, so we did that. I would say I think that was probably our '23. Yeah, probably we just started in 2022. I'm not sure a survey got out in '22, but 'twenty three. And so that was basically we used every listserv that Water Quality had, every listserv we had. We contacted all the growers associations and the conservation districts and said, please disseminate this electronic survey for people to do. And I don't know. I mean, I would say middle of the road, similar to the 2024 numbers. Like, I think we got 50, you know, around 50 to 60 respondents from that. So I don't know. And that was more of an overarching, you know, that was, I think we still were in Munich mode, but I'm not sure we were officially, you know, we weren't officially assigned yet. We didn't have that legislative responsibility quite yet. So we're a little more broad and ambitious question. I think that was a much longer survey. So yes, we have done that. I don't think it's crossed off the list of didn't work. Think that we can keep doing that.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Is that right? Just to follow-up, do you ever do sort of listening sessions or take testimony to get, say, 10 or 12 farmers in and then the AIP asks them maybe deeper questions than a survey?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, so we've only dabbled in that. In 2026, we've dabbled in having a few farmers come in, and that is members chose to do that almost in response to a public comment of so a lot of those that list of charges, a lot of them deal with reducing pesticide use. Right. So I think that, you know, we've been focused on Neonix specifically and then which involves reducing pesticide use. Right. So, I think some of those charges have been checked with that, but not overarching recommendations about overarching pesticide use yet. So, we had received some public comment of, hey, you should do that. So, we have started contacting farmers, Come in, tell us about your practices, right, that do that. So we had that at the 2026. But I think that's a really good idea of having more panel, things like that, to have greater participation in that. So because of these survey results, members decided for 2025 to begin to address that concerns about ag waste. Those kind of rose to the top about the environmental concerns. If we have this stuff, we don't know what to do with it, and we have a lot of it. So in '25, AIB heard from Agency of Ag, DEC, recycling industry, a Canadian producer responsibility organization, the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance, dairy cooperatives, including Bennington and Jerry's and Organic Valley, and a producer of a compostable plastic product. In 2025, also the AIB continued to consult with the agency of AG as they shepherded the Newnanic BPs through the rulemaking process. So that was still part of the work of the board through 2025. So I just pulled out these are those legislative charges that I showed you so relevant to ag waste and specifically ag plastic. Two of those responsibilities are in statute. So they read, the AIB shall recommend practices to reduce the use and generation of waste associated with plastic and farming. And number 12 is AIB shall study and issue recommendations regarding the feasibility of the use of biodegradable plastics in ag and the promotion of the use of and production of biodegradable plastics and similar products in Vermont. So taking the survey into account, taking in our legislative charges, we have these two things here, the AIB went to work. So they started by hearing about some preliminary work that was done by the Agency of Ag and an agricultural plastics work group that met and did kind of this preliminary investigation into ag plastics in 2019 and just a little bit over into 2020. So this slide, yeah, go ahead.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Just to

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: jog my memory committee, who did we hear from in the Connecticut Valley Farmers Alliance that was doing sort of a prototype of how to get rid of say ag bags? Remember they were bundling it?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I have a slide. He came to talk to us. Mike Snow.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Okay. And he was from Connecticut?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yep. I heard. Yes.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: That's funny. Right? Or it showed up somehow. Yeah. Forgot that.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. Okay. He came and talked to us. Yep. This is just an idea, right, so of all the different types of plastic used in different types of agriculture in the state. So this kind of preliminary investigation in 1920 showed that most of this ag plastic ends up in the landfill. Some types of the plastic can be reused or recycled. Sometimes it's illegally burned or buried, or sometimes it's just stored and basically not managed. So in 2019. These disposal costs are most definitely higher now, but they were still significant in 2019 when they did this preliminary investigation into it. So this work group identified challenges in dealing with ag plastics. One, that the recycling infrastructure is extremely limited. Farmers have trouble cleaning the ag plastic as needed for recycling it, and they don't have enough space to store it. Oftentimes, that storage time has to be longer than the waste they're used to getting rid of it through landfill because of all these transportation logistics of getting it to where it needs to go. There's limited market demand for the different types of recycled plastic and alternatives to plastic in our current farming practices are pretty few and far between. So these were the what came out of that kind of preliminary investigation. So the heavy looked at ag plastic recycling programmes of the past and then of the present. So now defunct programs include a pilot by Casella and AgriMark Abbott. Also, the New York Recycling Ag Plastics Project has stopped operation. But current programs include MOFCA, so Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. So they have a program to recycle LDPE number four film. So that's what's used on greenhouses and high tunnels. The Vermont Nursery and Landscape Association, in partnership with Pride's Corner Farm, have a relatively new recycling program for plastic pots that are used in the nursery industry. The ACRC has an established program for collecting and recycling pesticide containers. So this is probably the most robust system we have right

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: now

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: for recycling a type of ag plastic. And the ACRC partners with a company called RPM Eco. So they also we had RPM Eco come in. That was a new partnership. They had used another recycling prior to this year. Well, '25. But they just started a new partnership with RPM Eco. And so we had them come in and talk to the AIB about their processes. And since they had just started, had an early estimate was to collect 5,000 pounds of plastic from Vermont. And so this is just pesticide containers. And so what our PMECO recycles those containers into are oil containers, five gallon buckets and garbage carts. And then we had the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance, so they received a working lands grant from the agency in 2025 to pilot a recycling program for bail wrap. So we had Mike Snow come in, and we had he came in in March '25, so it was at the very start of his kind of getting the program up and running. So we plan on having he's actually scheduled to come back at our AIB meeting, which is in May, the end of the month. But how their program was going to work was participating farms become a member of the Farmers Alliance, and they're given a super sack to collect their clean and dry bail wrap. Right? Clean and dry being keywords. A super sack, I don't know. I used to wear green on coffee roasters. Like, that's what the coffee comes in. It's like a flexible bag with two handles on the top. It's, you know, with this table, probably up to the light. Like, it's a flexible super sack tote. Like, that's what people buy. So actually, I think he was looking for donations from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and things like that. That's what they get coffee in is the super sacks where they get sugar in super sacks and things like that. It's common in the food industry. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: The idea was so you give the participating farm a super sack. Sorry, it's coming up. And they fill it with a clean and dry bale wrap. The Farmers Alliance would then pick up the super sack and bring it to a solid waste district. And so the participating ones are in Brattleboro, Lindenville and Lebanon, New Hampshire. Then they compact the bale wrap or the film into bales. Right? So it can be more efficiently transported. Right? It's kind of bulky, odd stuff. Right? So they want to compact it into bales. So once the solid waste districts have accumulated a full truckload, then the Watershed Farmers Alliance would transport to a recycling company in Pennsylvania. So the Farmers Alliance was planning on, and I assume they did, compensating the solid waste districts for their labor and storage space. So basically, they were keeping these compacted bales on-site until they had a full truckload for them, farmers lines, to come pick up and transport. So hopefully we'll hear more. From Mike Snow in May, I did actually just yesterday talk to the company that was planning on, at least at the '25, receiving the plastic bales, and that company actually stopped receiving film. They basically lost their end market. No one wanted that resin that they need.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah. So

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: I don't know yet. So I have to confirm with Mike of they I think they found an alternative, but their original plan had to pivot, which I think is common and is reflective over and over from what we're hearing is that it's really hard. Bale wrap in particular. There's not much end market for that recycled resin to then go into something else.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: What is that particular resin in DelRap?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: It's whatever. So they like pelletize it is my understanding. And then I think part of it is because it's not clear and it has, I think, well, to get to the pelletizing, it needs to be clean. Right. So they it sounds like recycling industries do have some sort of mechanical washing systems, but they have their limitations and bale wrap can be really dirty. You know, it's really hard for farmers to move. I mean, you can probably tell us more. It's hard to clean that. You know, your grabbing like, you're just like, it's like rocks, too. You know what mean? And so it's just like it pushes the capability of their washing systems. So but then once you get past that point, then you're pelletizing it into a resin that then I think gets made into basically reusable bags or another film. And I think some of it, it can be sticky or tacky, but also it's the color. They want it to be clear.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Representative Bartholomew. Well, you just kind of touched on it, cleaning aspect of it's hard enough for farmers to dry the stuff. It's dirty inside and out. It's often used in the winter where how are you going to wash it? What does clean mean? And what does the farmer have to do to clean it?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yep. So I will tell you that our member Leon Porse, our organic dairy farmer asks every single person that comes to talk to AIB is how clean is clean. What is this? That's what I'm asking you. What is this mean? Right. So they've asked everybody and it's, you know, it's not a straight answer, right? Like, it's just clean, clean and dry, right? That's what Mike Snow was told. I would say just talking, I just called this woman yesterday and just talking to her, she was the one I explained, yeah, we can wash it, but we can't wash

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: it

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: as much as it needs to be washed sometimes. She did say like the first trial bales that she received from this project with the Connecticut River Watershed Farmers Alliance were great and acceptable. So their first pilot bales were acceptable to their company for recycling. Just is you can get it and everything. It was just not worth that recycling company's time to process it if they can't sell then their end product to then be used into something else.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Brian? Yeah, just wondered on the going forward alternative side, it's EU, Canada, or wherever, are there biodegradable options now being explored or actually used? That seems like a better solution than

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So that's an area

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: there with his Brillo pad cleaning this chair.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yes. So that's an area that the AIB definitely from '25 to '26, you know, in '26 that we need to learn more about, I would say, and you'll see coming up, but one of the main problems is what do you need the bale wrap to do? You need it to provide to seal in a specific environment, right, for that feed to be of the quality that you want. So you need that plastic to be durable and a barrier to oxygen, moisture, light, so that it creates that conducive environment to make quality feed. That's almost an opposition of being able to be biodegraded. Right? So that dichotomy of both of those, the need of what you need the plastic to do for you and then having it be biodegradable alternative are opposing ends of the spectrum.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: If you're doing in a row crop for three months, it's different than putting up a round bale that, you know, they don't last forever anyway, but if you get eight, you can get eighteen months out of them, if properly stored. Nobody chewed the whole one.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah. You got a five stone ground.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And then, you know, ag bags are a totally different deal, and bunk cover,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: know,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: nursery use row crops, know, when we did the hemp, we used all biodegradable plastic, you know, and it was great.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: The bunkers had different product, different thickness? Oh, oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: A lot thicker. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Heavier. Yep. Add bags here. Gonna basically drive on a piece of it to get your bucket, keep it tight, and then can pick it out of the nub with a nail spear. They get that. It's, like, 300 feet apart. It's kind of a mess.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Would be cleaning an ag bag would be even 10 times worse than just your bare wrap.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: You

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: know, I don't use ag products, but we use iron out bags to try to get our water to be less orange. Mhmm. Do this for a year, and you do it for five years to cut them back. Will take them, but you gotta cut them open, pull them inside out, wash them.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Who who takes them? Your solid waste district for recycling? Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Moil side. But to the point, it's a masking. There's a water quality impact from anything you wash, whether it's in a domestic or a farm setting. The amount of, you know, water you're spraying, you don't do it in the house. You do it on so somewhere you have to weigh what the environmental impacts of just the cleaning, motor transport to Pennsylvania, then you don't have the marketing, so that's shut off. We face this in everything, including solid waste, so it's complex and from a carbon, from a environment.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, we did ask. That came up when Mike Snow came to talk to us about, because we're hearing about, well, they have to bring it to the solid waste districts, then they have to go back and pick it up and then bring it to Pennsylvania. So we're like, oh, are we going to study the carbon footprint of that? And he was very interested in doing it. He himself didn't have the capacity as part of his project to do it. But he was like, if someone at IBM can do this for us, we'd love to know that. And so it's definitely out there to add to the complexity of it, of like, yeah, you're recycling this product, but how do you compare that to then your added transportation? It can snowball.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Representative Burtt?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah, Curious as to what bail wrap in particular, the processing that takes place. Is there melting, like a slicing, cutting process, the melting process? Are you familiar at all?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So I don't know yet, partly because so definitely in '25, we didn't have anybody. So RPM Eco was the recycling industry that we came in, And then I basically spent the rest of the year trying to contact a recycling company that recycled ag plastic to no avail. So yesterday was the first time I had talked to somebody who had at one point taken it, no longer takes it. So I'm hoping she's also going to come in May, I think, and talk to the AIB so we can get basically answer that question. I was like, we don't exactly know what exactly what that process is other than anecdotally some sort of wash line and then somehow turns into pellets.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: I'm guessing, often, aside from government subsidies tending to model situation in terms of profitability, but profitability is usually a good indicator of how efficient something is, right? So if nobody wants to do it, fortunately it's probably not very profitable. So it's made sense. Also probably not an efficient process, which makes me wonder at some point in terms of an energy, obviously why are we recycling in the first place? We're recycling because there is the option to incinerate and generate electricity or heat, which I think some places do, I'm not familiar. And at what point are you at the borderline of, okay, the only way we can manage this plastic is to input a lot of energy into it in order to create this product that's marginally useful. Where is that line of actually it might make either this goes into a landfill or this gets incinerated and turned into power? Is that a discussion?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, I think that's where most of these recycling companies that I'm trying to contact, they're learning that right now. You know what I mean? They're on either side of that line And they're, Okay, let's try it. No, we can't do it. Oh, let's try it. No, we can't do it. I would think, and we heard a lot from Canada and you'll hear coming up, that they have to recycle this stuff. So I'm hoping that we can get that. But I do think they hound, so they call that waste to energy. That's considered recycling. They might, I think. You know, it's part of that, you know, like different types of recycling, like primary, secondary, tertiary of like, well, okay, well, sometimes it just goes into energy. Right? And that's still you're still getting something. It's not just being buried in the ground. Right? So they're still considering that a type of recycling that plastic. And so things like exactly representative Jen was talking about that they seed bags. You don't want to. They're like the, you know, and your pesticide containers, they have to be triple rinsed. Your seed bags are not rinsed. Right? And however, they have residue. So there's a lot of guidance from industry of how to deal with your seed bags in the most environmental conscious way. And then for the most part, now, seed bags are waste to energy. They're just incinerated because they don't go into products that have any market to be recycled into something else.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I will recognize the hands that are up in the air at the moment, and then we'll go on. But we can maybe schedule some separate testimony because this is a fascinating

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. And I would say we're still learning. I'm giving you a lot of teasers for '26. Like, we are in the midst of it right now. We're still learning every meeting about new things. I mean, I still don't know if, you know, we're going to come out with, more recommendations than we have in 2025, still it's not going be an answer, Right? Like, can give you these are the things we learned. This is the recommendations from what we learned, but it's like, this is the solution that's never gonna come out of it. As you guys can tell.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You scrub these microplastic in this particular matter. What's that due to? Air quality eventually, they drift back into the water system.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Good point, yeah. Definitely beyond

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: my completely cold, you don't worry about it.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah. So you were talking about incinerating certain things, and I would assume that incinerating plastics would release toxins in the air and maybe not be plan A. What are seed bags made out of is really what my question is, because you said seed bags are being incinerated. What is a seed bag made out of?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So I can't tell you exactly right now. It's plastic, you know.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: So it is a form of plastic?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Seed seed bags?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Like corn seed bag?

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: A lot of paper, and then there's soy ink in them, and there's a very thin barrier of plastic. Right. Like a I mean

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Like a grain

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Like like, well, thinner. Like like saran wrap then. Okay. Probably thinner than saran wrap. Yeah. And the only reason it works is this in those layers of paper. But to be sure, leave your corn seed out in your pickup truck and you're planting and it starts to rain, you you even if you can still plant, you stop and you cover your load because Yeah. You're gonna have wet corn Yeah. And bags that are melting when you try to handle them.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Some of those, a lot of that cornstarch does a treatment too. So that's

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Right. So

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: that inside the bag.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: That leads to the That

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: keeps the stinging fritters at

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: the bag.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: How about flag for next I just saw it referenced earlier, but I know in our town, there was confusion about the nursery pots and the seed planters because that black plastic, the Central Vermont Management District did not want, even though they're marked with plastic number two or plastic number one. So I think within the sort of growing, you know, or modern storing vegetables, it's really confusing.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, I agree. It's definitely different types. And I did make these links so that you can go in and dig into these specific programs for that. The VNLA one is pretty new. In '20 it was like maybe mid twenty twenty five when they kind of partnered and started this plastic pot.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: They take that plastic. I'm just thinking way outside the box and compress it into blocks that could be usable in the construction industry. I mean, that stuff, you know, with a little heat and a lot of pressure.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: That's Absolutely. Some of the things that we've heard get made into, like, curb stops, pallets. Yeah. Basically, we've heard that things that can have can tolerate variability are a decent end use for them this recycled content, just because it's not always gonna be consistent what that recycled content is going to be. And so then also, it's like, obviously, you're not gonna make your out of it.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You can't make pallets out of it because we have representative Lipsky in here that want to

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: put that hardwood trees to make pallets with softwood.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah. So but exactly right. Yeah. Think that they're doing that. I think many years the enforced talks about being at a meeting in California, and they were making, like, sidewalk pans out of recycled plastic and fence posts. Right? Things like that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Okay. So

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: another pilot program that we've heard about, so Organic Valley Cooperative in Wisconsin. I know that we're involved in Vermont, but they had done the majority of this was out of Wisconsin. Some piloting program. So they started with a nine year recycling program of vegetable plastic mulch. And then this program now is completely self funded and still sustainably operated by the farmers. And so it started supplemented and funded by Organic Valley, and now the farmers do it on their own. And so for this vegetable plastic mulch. And so Organic Valley also contracted with a consultant just to kind of get an idea of, alright, dairy, ag, plastic, you know, what are what are we talking about? And so what came out of that, I think, is kind of to put it in a little bit of perspective of what members kind of glommed on to the most was eight to 15 pounds per cow per year of egg plastic. So Organic Valley also talked to us about a Midwest company called Revolution Plastics. And they, as you know, it's on their website as well. But however, this is a company that was still trying to, but I'm unable to kind of learn more about of having them come into AIB. But they have a program that provides free dumpsters and pickup for ag plastic films. And so I do think this was one that the Organic Valley representative said that they had developed a mechanical washing system. But we don't know more about it yet. Challenges highlighted by Organic Valley include high cost, contamination, collection logistics, efficient management of kind of high volumes, bulky of the film plastic, and then the limited alternatives.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Nine year recycling program, is that it's been going for nine years or the plastics nine years? What does that mean?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So the program itself was ran for nine years funded by Organic Valley, and now it's continued. And that was did I write the years on that? I think that was one that started in 2009. So it ran to 2018, but now it's continued just by the farmers funding themselves. So like the infrastructure was still there, but Organic Valley doesn't have to pay for anything. So the NIV also learned about extended producer responsibility regulations, so in Vermont and Canada. And so basically, those types of regulations put the onus on the manufacturer of the plastic products or other products, right, for them to provide basically management of that full lifecycle of their product. So it needs to include a plan for the end of life of that product. So include a recycling plan or disposal plan for those products. So Vermont, currently, we have five EPR laws on the books, including for electronics, paint, mercury thermostats and light bulbs and batteries. And then we had the recent household hazardous waste. EPR law covers a wide range of products, excluding pesticides, and it does address the high cost that municipalities face when managing household hazardous waste. So all the existing EPR programs in Vermont correlate with landfill bans. So that's smart, right? Ensuring that when a ban is in place, it's paired with a viable recycling program. The one exception is tires. So waste tires are banned from the landfill. But to date, tire EPR legislation hasn't passed, but has been introduced a couple of times. So, AIB learned from Canada, so they have extensive EPR regulations. They differ by province. But the AIB heard mostly about Quebec's EPR regulations, and they include bale wrap, silage bags, pesticide containers, greenhouse plastics and maple tubing. So through these regulations, the manufacturers of these products are required to develop and finance government approved recycling programs. It's difficult for each of those manufacturers to meet those requirements on their own. Right? So they utilize this National Producer Responsibility Organization or PRO. In Canada, it's called Clean Farms. So that's who came to talk to us about So they have a regulatory specialist who came to talk to us specifically about Quebec. And so the Pro helps the manufacturers meet the regulations and also coordinates then the recycling program. So it kind of lets manufacturers then be members of this Pro to say, Okay, I need to be in compliance. Help me out. I'm not going to develop my own program just on my own for my own products. So producers and producers is written on here, it's I know it can be confusing. Producer is similar to manufacturers, right? So I'm not talking ag producers.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I'm here.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So the manufacturers do pass along the cost of being in compliance with these EPR regulations to consumers with eco fees. They're estimated at seven to 10% of the product cost for hay and silage related products. And so that eco fee is a little bit lower for pesticides. So lessons from clean farms in developing these regulations include conduct ag waste studies to quantify the plastic volumes, identify your recyclers and collection sites, pilot programs to test your regional feasibility, give at least two years, if not more, for implementation. And enforcement on manufacturers is challenging, but it's necessary to get their participation that then makes all the programs financially sustainable. Clean farms emphasize collaboration between all the parties just to make this kind of a sustainable success. So a little bit more about Clean Farms, right? So they're operating as this middleman of sorts between the EPA regulations and the manufacturers, and they're developing and implementing all the recycling programs. So Clean Farm started as this as a pesticide container recycling program, I would think so same with ACRC in The United States. That is the most established recycling program that we have of Ag plastic is for Ag, is for pesticide containers. So then they've expanded their scope. But so by being a pro, a national pro, they can pool their resources under this Clean Farms umbrella so that they can run more efficiently. Farmer cooperation is pretty strong. For them, they have over 2,300 collection sites, but cleaning the waste is a challenge. We've talked about it, seed bags and bale wrap. They do try and do quite a good job with educational campaigns and guidance from industry. Of how to deal with these. And so this is where we learned that those treated seed bags currently are energy from waste facilities so that, that's their recycling option. So considerations, is that basically keeping costs low through operational efficiencies. They can have operational efficiencies because they're pooling everything together. Right? So all the manufacturers are funding clean farms to say, Okay, help us be in compliance. And then it gets all together right. With scale comes, lowering cost. Basically, you wanna get your money from your manufacturers so that farmers don't have to bear that cost. But as we saw, it can get passed on as an eco fee when you buy the product. Building it as convenient and accessible to farmers as possible so that they can easily participate in programs and collaborate early and often with everybody. So to briefly address, if you remember that second legislative charge was about biodegradable. So in 2025, we only just dipped our toe into it, And so board members heard from a company making compostable netwrap. I think as a film, it's harder to make as a film. It's easier as a twine. Right? So netwrap was an easier product to innovate. So that company is called Nature's Netwrap. It's based out of Canada. And so from them, members really learned the important difference between the term compostable and biodegradable. So most things are biodegradable, including your traditional plastics, be degraded by a biological entity. The resulting product from that biodegradation is not always environmentally safe to not use a great word, but right. Compostable products, right, they have to meet an established standard to break down a certain amount of time under certain conditions, and that resulting material has to be nontoxic. So basically, what came out of 2025 is we had preliminary recommendations. As you can see, we learned a lot, had a lot more to learn, but we did kind of pull out, Okay, these are the key things. So in terms of EPR, so when developing EPR policy, collaborate early and often interested parties and study the inputs and test feasibility. Policy should have a long enough lead time, two plus years, to develop and implement anything. Collaboration beyond important. Enforcement is important for the financially financial sustainability of any program. So enforcement is key. So if you're a policy recommendation from board members. Must include naming the enforcing entity and ensuring they have the capabilities and resources in order to effectively enforce any EPR policy. And then this PRO model that facilitates the EPR regulations and the requirements for the manufacturers was a proven policy option because of that pooling of resources. So an alternative to EPR policy and state regulations is supporting ag plastic recycling programs. It's important to identify that end market for the plastic waste. We did hear, though, there has been more and more requirements being passed lately that requires end products to have a higher percentage of recycled content in them. Right? So in essence, that should drive the market up for recycled content. Right? So think like those pellets, right? They should have a higher market for those pellets because they are going to be required to have more recycled content in their end products. So there is light at the end of the tunnel there so that maybe that market will go up. But if ag plastic can be the feedstock for that is what we're learning still. So, Amy wants to continue to learn from past pilot programs in Vermont to understand those local challenges that we saw. And as far as alternatives, we talked about this is that opposing nature of what we need the plastic to do and then what makes something compostablebiodegradable. So it's just important. Also, this is where I snuck in that organic farming standards limit the adoption of use of biodegradable because they consider them a soil amendment in organic farming, which makes complete sense. So that means that that biodegradable plastic alternative has to meet the criteria of a soil amendment as well. So I think to date, it's not really a lot. You can't just use any biodegradable and organic. But we haven't heard more about that yet. And so this is just my other things AIB talked about. So the Munich BMP rulemaking. We also continue to hear about the Munich research done by Doctor. Darby at UVM. We also, in 2025, the Agency of Ag helped fund a study for wild pollinator research by the Vermont Center for Eco Studies. And so at the time, in 2025, we had Brian Robozo as a member of AIB. So he talked about that research that was starting. And then we also had an update from the APRA program. And then always AIB keeps informed of any PFAS policy discussions that are relevant to ag. So in 2026, we've been talking a lot about what we have been doing, what we have been learning. So we did see that the BMP rulemaking process of finish line. So our next NEONIC related responsibility as AIB is to keep consulting with the agency of AG as they develop the pest risk assessment process for that law. Obviously, have a lot to learn about alternatives. We have more to learn about from the recycling industry and existing recycling programs that are out there. So and then I also kind of talk about this as we've been trying to hear from people and practices that may reduce the use and dependence of pesticides in Vermont. So we haven't done full in on this yet, but we've kind of sprinkled it in. And that was the plan for 2026 as we go, just recognizing that it is a component of some of those legislative charges of that list of 12 things. And that's it, and this was just our members if we already talked about it. Yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Good. Thank you. Representative Bartholomew. You touched on PFAS. Can you briefly explain more of what what kind of exploration you've done to that, particularly in pesticides, both as the lining of the plastic bottles or inert ingredients or active ingredients in pesticides?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So I would say we haven't talked about that, at all, only Vermont specific things that have come up. But so we usually have Doctor. Pam Breyer tell us if anything is happening basically here, like with you guys. We haven't gone full in. Members haven't asked to go full in on PFAS and pesticides, and so we haven't discussed that.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm keeping a list of potential witnesses. I'm going to add Doctor. Pam Breyer.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Oh, yeah. So yes, she's our resident PFAS.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: With the agency?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Talks, call her. Yeah.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: She's our

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: tech staff. Okay. Other questions?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: One thing you haven't mentioned is Paracat, which we passed, and you're going to be involved with Yes, the

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: And I think we'll work with UVM for sure, Doctor. Bradshaw, to meet that requirement for sure. Obviously, we don't know. We wait until ink is on the page and then we hit the ground running. But yes, it's there. We know.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Just one other thing. One thing we didn't really talk about is contact. I'd love to see like tonnage wise or a visual picture of a mountain here's ag plastic that we produce a year and here's, say, John O'Brien that Vermont produces a year. Mean, is

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: it you ever look at like this, how big

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: a problem is this? I mean, it's big, but it's compared to something like tires. Yeah.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So tires, I would have to go back and just look specifically at her presentation. She might have had some, we heard from someone who works in DEC, and I think they had some pretty good numbers for tires. For ag plastic, we don't know that right now. Right. So we that's part of kind of the recommendation is we need a like a study that can figure this out for us, right, to understand the quantities that we're talking about. We did try in the twenty sixth survey, and ask questions to get even just, you know, it's like estimate is a strong word, right? So we basically ask people how many how many roles because we wanted them to be able to do it off the top of their head, right? Because they're sitting at a meeting, we're handing a piece of paper, right? So we asked them, how many rolls of bail wrap do you buy per year? How many rolls of bunker cover? How many rolls of whatever, net wrap, or anything else you wanna tell us that's plastic that you buy. So we kind of had a lot of open ended questions like that. And then we have to kinda make estimates about, okay. Well, it's about this amount. You know, a roll weighs about this much. So then we can extrapolate this total poundage or this total even square feet, you know, like, we wanted to kinda look at it. So that's kinda where we're at right now. We knew that that was a gap. It's definitely what we're doing in a survey is not adequate in providing exact numbers to actually influence policy or program development or business development, you know, business plan development of those programs. But at least it's ballpark at best. So, yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: It's not on this slide, but you are on the board.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Am, yeah. So we have two member slots for Agency of Ag, basically someone from agrochemical program and then secretary. So Steve is the representative in place of secretary of ag, and then I'm the representative of the agrochemical program.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Laura is up there too. She?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: So we have some representative from water quality. So she's our water quality.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Yep. It sounds like you've got a full board, got plenty to do, You're meeting fairly regularly. Yeah,

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: we will have sadly, just because it's up here, our toxicologist, who was our representative from the Department of Health passed away just a month ago almost. So we don't have that filled quite yet. But so we're Yeah, she will be greatly missed.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Are we out of time? Yeah, go ahead. Well, are, but go ahead.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Sorry. Outside, my wife and

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I were in Austria a number of years ago and

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: they're just looking at their practices. They have weather similar to ours where they would have

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: wagons where they would take loose hay and collected wagons, bring it back to barns where they would dry it and then bail it in the barn after it was dried.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Any sort of thought, I mean, obviously we have systems in place that work, they're efficient and we roll with it and they debunk with a six mil poly on top, doesn't add up to a lot of plastic per ton of feed. But is that ever a conversation of what could we do to transform our systems? Just putting up dry round bales, Dry it in the field. But we all know that some years, last year, a great year for dry round. Yeah. The previous team, no. Yeah. So is that a conversation of how do we decrease the amount of glass being used in the first place for your systems?

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Yeah, I think that we can definitely add that to the list of, you know, we would need to overhaul our current practices, right? And if that's possible. And so if we can find, and gladly, if you guys know anybody who is doing remotely something like that that we can have in to learn from, we definitely would do it. I think it's a really good point and something that AIB could possibly explore. I mean, we can go to Europe and stuff, but then I need that local input to be like, hell no,

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: that's They also find it by saying 14,000 still somehow financially controlled.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Right. Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Greg, I tell you that.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: They get a check-in the mail for

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: because they have suspect a

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: facility where they milk cows. So I tell

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you, anything was possible if we could pass any fees associated with it on to the consumer, but since we can't, we gotta take what they give us. It's hard to do anything.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: That's why I I bet I got this bill. It's yeah. It's pretty severe here too. Really interesting conversation. Thank you for joining us.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Thank you, guys.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: After yeah. Maybe I don't know whether we'll have time this year, but we should try and get an update once you've heard from the Connecticut.

[Morgan Griffith, Agrochemical Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets]: Sure. Well, you'll get another report from us January '27, for sure. But, yeah, we can give you a teaser. Yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Alright. We'll take a break. Steve, are you how flexible are you with your schedule? Take a break. I'm