Losing Our Green Thumb: Supporting the Agricultural Sector with Bio-Plastic Products
On October 24-26th, I was invited to speak at the Basin Summit and Expo in Rossland, British Columbia. Rossland and the Columbia Basin region are centres of agriculture in British Columbia. This year’s Basin Summit was designed to bring together resources and expertise to support the farmers, growers and producers of agricultural products in south-eastern British Columbia.
I was asked to speak about the use of bio-derived and biodegradable plastics in food packaging and agriculture. I also led a session on the potential of the circular bioeconomy in maintaining resilience of our farming communities. At the Summit, I learned about the challenges facing the agricultural sector directly from those who work the land every day to ensure food security here in British Columbia. My eyes were opened to the significant struggles they are faced by, especially in these turbulent times of changing climate and weather patterns.
During the final farm-style dinner, past Minister of Agriculture Corky Evans captivated attendees with an in-depth history of how the combined effect of evolving federal and provincial polices have made staying in the fields more and more challenging for Canadians. I’d like to share a bit of that history with you here.
Devaluing of BC agriculture through two centuries of economic policy
Strong beginnings
In the 1880s, the Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) company asked the BC government for funding to build a railway through the Canadian Rockies. In exchange for these funds, the BC government said that CPR would have to provide transport for BC agricultural products throughout Canada until the end of time. What a deal!
At a time when agricultural production was valued, policy makers had to ensure to get the ‘farm-vote’ and those in rural regions were sure that government was going to continue to look after them. For the next 130 years, they were very successful. There were independent trucking companies in every small region that were able to aggregate the agricultural products and truck them to remote communities throughout BC, and the agreement with CPR allowed the shipping of products further afield.
Opening the flood gates: Cross-border competition and free trade agreements
Farming in the Northern US states was challenging because of the dry conditions in the desert-like region. After the winter snows in the spring, fields were wet enough to support large scale industrial agriculture, however in the summer months things dried up significantly, making year-round growth a challenge. Washington and Ottawa came to an agreement that the Provincial Government of BC would dam the Kootenay river to provide the northern States with 150 million-acre feet of water to irrigate the Northern US farmlands, as well as offer opportunities for generating hydro-electric energy. Two years later, the dam was built, and a huge section of the Kootenay region was flooded to form Lake Koocanusa. This created a booming agricultural sector in the Northern US states, with potential to supply western Canada with their products.
In the early to mid-90s, Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement which meant that US and Mexican import products would no longer have tariffs applied, making their agricultural sectors in direct competition with BC famers. At the same time, the BC government went back to CPR to renegotiate their contract and said that the ‘end of time’ would actually only be until 1995. This meant that BC agriculture no longer had subsidized rail transportation. Similarly, with the increase of product coming from the US, international trucking companies sprang up whose trucks would load up in southern California and would transport product all the way up the west coast into BC. As a result, there was less demand for local trucking services, causing them to shut down and access to transportation for rural farming communities was reduced.
Suddenly BC farmers had to compete with cheaper production in the US and Mexico and were faced with increased transportation costs. With a loss of local markets, farmers and producers now had to ship their product further afield in order to generate a profit from their production. These conditions also drove farmers to focus on high value crops, reducing the biodiversity in the region and leading to an increase in the use of pesticides and herbicides to control production.
Until the middle of the last century, much of the food consumed in BC was also grown or raised here, either wild or cultivated. During this time, one-third of the population were farmers. Currently as much as 95% of the food consumed in this region is imported with only 1.57% of Canadians still tending their fields.
This situation has a huge impact on food security in BC and broadly across Canada. We are seeing many residents in the province shifting their values to support locally raised and grown farm products, which is manifesting in an increase of farmers markets across the region. This is a positive step in the right direction; however, these communities still face many challenges.
In order for the agricultural sector to thrive, increased support for farmers and producers through funding of equipment and infrastructure, professional support, and introducing seasonal and permanent markets is required. Otherwise, the long-lasting effects on our food production could be devastating.
But…where do bioplastics fit in?
Bringing us back to my area of expertise, bio-derived and biodegradable plastics. During my time at the Basin Food Summit and Expo, I met many organic farmers, growers and producers who need to package their products in order to ship them to markets across Canada and the world.
People are searching for ways to reduce plastic waste whilst also ensuring there are proper end-of-life options available for food-contaminated packaging. The challenge is that they require a variety of barrier properties, strength and durability for the vast range of farm products. Visibility of their product is also important to gain attention of the consumer. In actuality, the range of packaging options currently available is small, with many of the certified compostable products being targeted at single-use items in the food service industry. The costs associated with buying these more “sustainable” alternatives are reflected in consumer pricing, which makes it difficult for their price-points to compete with others on the market. Because these producers are compelled to sell into a variety of different markets, ensuring that there are compost facilities in each market that will take and convert these materials is very challenging for farmers. These rural communities also struggle because they lack access to centralized compost operations. This results in growers and producers attempting to break down the compostable plastics within their farm or home compost, where these materials are not certified to decompose.
To improve the agricultural production of their farms, many people are using plastic mulches and coverings in their operations, as well as bale twine, netting, pots, fertilizer containers and a huge variety of other plastics that are used during growing and harvesting. In 2012, BC agriculture produced 3620 tonnes of plastic waste, with 51% of this being plastic film. Recycling of this agricultural plastic is challenging as it is often contaminated with soil and other organic matter. For many of these applications, having a compostable or soil biodegradable product would be useful. However, the current market for bio-derived and biodegradable materials are only focused on consumer facing products. There is also not a certification body in North America to rubber stamp standardized assessments of agricultural soil biodegradation.
The impacts of conventional plastics on soil health are only beginning to be investigated, with the bulk of reports being published in the last five years. Some studies have stated that there may be 4-23 times more plastic in our soils than in the ocean, an alarming thought considering that there may be 51 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans by 2050.
Studies that have explored soil contamination by plastics have shown that there is potential for impact on microbial activity and spread of antibiotic genes through the adsorption of antibiotics onto microplastics that can persist in the soil for longer periods. Other potentially toxic chemical additives can also be transferred through soil ecosystems by way of microplastic transportation. Other studies have shown that different plant species are able to accumulate contaminated microplastics within their roots, stems leaves flowers and/or fruit, which can then be eaten by animals and humans to cause undetermined problems.
Agriculturally degradable plastics could be a solution for these challenges. However, even if these plastics are certified to degrade within two years, there will still be a period where microplastics will accumulate in the environment. In-depth exploration into the short and long term impacts these materials have on soil and plant health are crucial.
Being an advocate of bio-derived and biodegradable materials, and more broadly the circular bioeconomy, I left the conference feeling a bit like The Bearer of Bad News. Though I support the development, production and use of these new materials, I must stress the importance of fully understanding their potential and limitations for us to be better this time around. There is no point in putting products on the market that we will have to recall in five to ten years because we’ve since discovered that they are damaging to our ecosystems. Up to this point in modern history, we as scientists and as a society, have been retroactive rather than proactive when developing new technologies. We may not be completely certain of the impact of the things we are creating today, but by learning from our past failures and missteps we will be able to better guide the creation of regenerative and circular products. To achieve this, we need to engage with those whose problems we hope to solve, learn their history and the challenges they face, so we can collaboratively develop technologies that will support the growth and prosperity of their communities.
References:
History of the Columbia Basin Region
Columbia River Treaty
https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/columbiarivertreaty
Treaty relating to cooperative development of the water resources of the Columbia River Basin (with Annexes)
https://web.archive.org/web/20100706215743/http://www.ccrh.org/comm/river/docs/cotreaty.htm
Canadian Pacific Railway
Dorman, Robert and Stoltz, D.E. "A Statutory History of Railways in Canada 1836-1986". The Canadian Institute of Guided Ground Transport, Queen's University, 1987, pp. 109-110, 213, 293, 374, 421.
Canadian Pacific Railway, "Prairie & Pacific Regions Subdivision Chart and Historical Record" (1943)
Regional District of Central Kootenay Agriculture Plan
Statistics on Canadian Farming Population
https://youngagrarians.org/about/
Agricultural Plastic Reports
British Columbia Agricultural Packaging Waste Stewardship Study, June 2012
https://cleanfarms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/BC-Ag-Waste-Study-Dec-2012.pdf
Alberta Agricultural Waste Characterization Study Final Report, August 2013
https://albertaplasticsrecycling.com/resources-education/agricultural-plastics/
Microplastics in Agriculture
Liu et al., “Microplastics as contaminants in the soil environment: A mini-review.” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.209
Zhu et.al., “Occurrence and Ecological Impacts of Microplastics in Soil Systems: A Review.” https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-019-02623-z
Prata et. al., “Solutions and Integrated Strategies for the Control and Mitigation of Plastic and Microplastic Pollution.” https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132411
Prosperi et.al., “Production of bioplastics for agricultural purposes: A supply chain study.” https://dx.doi.org/10.3280/RISS2018-001010
Rillig et. al., “Impacts of Microplastics on the Soil Biophysical Environment.” https:// doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b02212
Ebere et. al., “Uptake of Microplastics by Plant: A Reason to Worry or to be Happy?” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334083970
