Friday, 23 August 2024 08:55

Compostable net wrap for bales

Written by  Mark Daniel
Compostable net wraps can significantly benefit farmers and the environment. Compostable net wraps can significantly benefit farmers and the environment.

Through its investment arm, CNH Ventures, CNH is supporting the development of the first viable compostable net wrap for bales in agriculture.

The investment in the Canadian start-up Nature’s Net Wrap aims to accelerate their mission to eliminate waste from the process of collecting and storing baled crops.

During harvesting operations based around large round bales, once a bale is formed it is generally held with a coating of net wrap and an outer layer of stretched plastic, which at the point of use is removed and eventually ends up getting burnt or placed in landfills. Farmers and contractors are limited in the reuse or recycling of plastic wraps or nets, negatively impacting their environmental footprint.

Shifting to compostable net wraps has the potential to significantly benefit farmers and the environment. It will help reduce landfill use, haulage and disposal costs, eliminate soil contamination, improve animal safety, and reduce the risk of water contamination, likely resulting in a reduction of around 2.5 million tons of plastic waste each year.

With high growth in this market is propelled by the general demand for chemical, and plastic-free solutions, the innovation uses biopolymer material made from renewable resources. It is said to hold up structurally and can naturally break down in the soil or be composted. CNH’s investment is supporting the testing and validation of the solution, with one of the company’s New Holland balers being used to produce all the bales in the testing phase. An initial product launch is expected later in the year.

More like this

Cropsy's cutting-edge AI on the vineyard

A New Zealand startup is providing growers with vital information for daily operations and long-term vineyard management, using a unique and scalable AI vine scanner that gives a vine-specific view of disease, pruning, land productivity and yields. Forty Cropsy systems have been deployed throughout New Zealand, the United States and France, with more than 20 million vine scans conducted in the past 12 months.

Featured

Brendan Attrill scoops national award for sustainable farming

Brendan Attrill of Caiseal Trust in Taranaki has been announced as the 2025 National Ambassador for Sustainable Farming and Growing and recipient of the Gordon Stephenson Trophy at the National Sustainability Showcase at in Wellington this evening.

National

Machinery & Products

Farming smarter with technology

The National Fieldays is an annual fixture in the farming calendar: it draws in thousands of farmers, contractors, and industry…

RainWave set to cause a splash

Traditional spreading via tankers or umbilical systems have typically discharged effluent onto splash-plates, resulting in small droplet sizes, which in…

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Misguided campaign

OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is…

Fieldays goes urban

OPINION: Once upon a time the Fieldays were for real farmers, salt of the earth people who thrived on hard…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter