Plastic Mulch Polluting Farmland: The Absurd Power Struggle Between Authorities | Repost and Follow-up

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Foodthink Commentary

On 7 March, Foodthink published an article titled “Plastic Film Pollutes Farmland: The Absurd ‘Power Struggle’ of Competent Authorities”, documenting the plight of a farmer whose land was polluted by plastic film discharged from a nearby processing plant. Despite this, the local ecological environment department and the agricultural and rural affairs department shifted responsibility to one another, and neither took action.

Two days after publication, the original article was deleted by WeChat on the grounds of having “received complaints regarding a violation of the Provisions on the Administration of Information Services for Public Accounts of Internet Users”. Articles published by Foodthink on other platforms were subsequently taken down. Given the public attention the piece has garnered, and to preserve the basis for public discussion, it is now being republished with specific geographical locations redacted, while preserving as much information as possible.

Although the article drew the attention of relevant authorities after its release, there has been no substantive progress in pollution remediation or accountability. At the request of the local sub-district office, the processing plant closest to the affected farmer moved its processing equipment and raw materials off the arable land. Subsequently, the land used for the temporary processing site and material stockpiles was ploughed over, burying the plastic film fragments in the soil. However, two other peanut straw enterprises in the same village continue their operations. As of today, the local ecological environment and agricultural and rural affairs departments have still failed to take action against the enterprises involved, citing unclear jurisdiction. The victimised farmer fears that as the traces of processing and evidence of soil pollution vanish, subsequent accountability will become increasingly difficult. Currently, only the soil contracted by the victim, Mr Li, has been sampled and sent for testing; soil restoration has not yet begun.

23 March: The stockpiling site of the enterprise involved; it can be seen that the land has been ploughed.

I. The Plastic Plague

With spring ploughing fast approaching, Mr Li, a farmer in H Province, is unable to till his land. Across his 70 acres of arable land, fragmented pieces of plastic film of various sizes—blown in from a nearby farm—are scattered everywhere, covering the soil like lingering snow or tangling among withered branches and straw. The plastic has even drifted into Mr Li’s cowshed.

Mr Li has been forced to spend his time with a few workers picking up fragments in the shed. “This film is light and brittle, like some kind of ultra-thin, substandard mulch.”

If left untreated, the plastic film will be mixed into the soil during ploughing. This not only hinders the growth of the current crop but also means the plastic can never be recovered. It is difficult to decompose, breaking down very slowly into plastic shards within the soil, which may then be absorbed by crops in the form of microplastics.

How did Mr Li, who does not use plastic mulch, become a victim of plastic pollution? It turns out that on 25 December last year, a temporary processing plant was established just 100 metres from the edge of his field. This small factory, occupying only a few dozen square metres, purchases large quantities of peanut straws from surrounding farmers, which are then crushed and processed into coarse fodder for livestock. Because the plastic film is not removed during the purchase of the peanut straws, it remains entwined with the stalks and is fed into the machinery. The shredded film is then carried by the wind onto surrounding farmland, including Mr Li’s.

This processing plant was set up temporarily after the peanut harvest and was built on what was originally basic farmland in the village. Due to its rudimentary conditions, the processing site lacked any additional protective measures, allowing the plastic film to drift indiscriminately.

On 1 January 2025, Mr Li called the 12345 Mayor’s Hotline to report the pollution. He subsequently submitted written statements to the local sub-district office, the Bureau of Ecology and Environment, and the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to report the situation.

More than two months have passed since the incident began. The season for sowing spring wheat is almost here, and Mr Li also intends to plant peas, garlic, rapeseed, and Chinese cabbage—vegetables that would provide his primary income for the year. However, the plastic film in the soil has prevented him from sowing, and he is on the verge of missing the planting window, which would jeopardise a full year’s earnings.

● Fragmented plastic film covers and permeates Mr Li’s land like lingering snow; picking it up is labour-intensive and it is difficult to clear completely.
● Mr Li and workers clearing plastic film fragments in the cowshed.
Mr Li was once a distributor of agricultural supplies and is well aware of the damage that pesticides, fertilisers, and plastic films cause to both people and the land. Fifteen years ago, he leased farmland in his village and adopted ecological farming methods, growing grain and vegetables without the use of pesticides, fertilisers, or herbicides. These 70 acres have been a sanctuary he has worked hard to protect for many years. This is why he is so deeply distressed by the plastic pollution that many other farmers have come to accept as normal.

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As the processing plant refused to take action, Mr Li was forced to pay 2,000 yuan out of his own pocket to the village secretary, who passed the money to the factory. The factory then installed a simple screen along the edge of the farmland. The plant also promised to provide funds for the village collective to hire people to pick up the film drifting into Mr Li’s fields, but this ceased after a few days, with the reason being that they “could not afford to pick it up every day”. The company is unwilling to stop production, yet as long as processing continues, plastic film will continue to blow over every day. With no other options, Mr Li can only continue to lodge complaints with the government.

● The current processing site of the enterprise involved.

II. Agricultural and Environmental Departments: A Remote ‘Power Struggle’

After receiving the complaints, the local Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Bureau of Ecology and Environment dispatched personnel to investigate the site. However, the responses they provided left Mr Li bewildered: the two departments cited the same laws and regulations, yet reached completely opposite conclusions.

In their respective replies, both stated that the pollution caused by the plastic film did not fall within their scope of responsibility. Consequently, they claimed they could not take enforcement action against the enterprise and that the matter should be resolved by the other department.

● Replies from the local agricultural and environmental departments to Mr Li.
Firstly, both parties cited Article 5 of the *Measures for the Management of Agricultural Film*. The Bureau of Ecology and Environment quoted the first sentence: “Agricultural and rural affairs departments of people’s governments at or above the county level are responsible for the supervision and management of the use and recovery of agricultural film, and for guiding the construction of agricultural film recovery and utilisation systems.”

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs quoted only the fourth sentence: “Ecological environment departments of people’s governments at or above the county level are responsible for the supervision and management of environmental pollution prevention and control during the recovery and reuse of agricultural film.”

In other words, in the chain of failures leading to poor mulch recovery and subsequent pollution, each side saw only the other’s dereliction of duty, while remaining blissfully blind to their own.

Secondly, a key point of their distant debate was: is the plastic mulch polluting Old Li’s farmland still “plastic mulch”?

The Bureau of Ecology and Environment suggested handling the matter according to Article 88 of the *Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law*: “Where producers, sellers, or users of agricultural inputs fail to timely recover packaging waste of fertilisers or other agricultural inputs, or agricultural film… in accordance with regulations, the agricultural and rural affairs department of the local people’s government shall order rectification.”

However, the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs responded that feed processing enterprises are not producers, sellers, or users of plastic mulch, and therefore “our unit has no legal basis for disposal”. They further cited Article 102 of the *Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste*, arguing that this constitutes “solid waste pollution” and should therefore be penalised by the ecological environment department.

Simply put: in this case, what flew into Old Li’s field is no longer “plastic mulch” in the legal sense, but “solid waste”.

“Solid waste” refers to items generated during production, daily life, and other activities that have lost their original utility, or items that, while still useful, have been discarded or abandoned.

But the Bureau of Ecology and Environment played a cleverer card, using the *Solid Waste Law* to defeat the *Solid Waste Law*. They cited Article 64 of the same act: “Agricultural and rural affairs departments of people’s governments at or above the county level are responsible for guiding the construction of agricultural solid waste recovery and utilisation systems, encouraging and guiding relevant units and other production and business operators to collect, store, transport, utilise, and dispose of agricultural solid waste in accordance with the law, and strengthening supervision and management to prevent environmental pollution.”

To put it in plain English: while solid waste generally falls under my jurisdiction, agricultural solid waste is still the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ business.

Left with these two responses, Old Li was utterly heartbroken. He continued to report the issue through government website messages, telephone hotlines, and other channels. To date, there has been no progress.

III. Who is actually responsible for agricultural solid waste?

Returning to the critical question of this incident: who should actually be responsible for agricultural solid waste? Environmental lawyer Wu Anxin believes the responsible authority should be the ecological environment department, as the peanut stalks entwined with plastic mulch are raw materials, and feed processing falls under the category of industrial production; therefore, pollution during the processing stage is regulated by the ecological environment department.

Yet, the reason waste mulch appears in a processing setting is inevitably the result of poor mulch recovery in the fields. In 2023, the Chengde Procuratorate in Hebei ordered the local agricultural and rural affairs department to fulfil its duties in supervising mulch use and recovery after large-scale mulch use in a certain village caused farmland pollution.

The logic of recovery and pollution is simple: if it is recovered, there is no pollution; if it is not, pollution occurs. But at the government level, recovery is the responsibility of the agricultural and rural affairs department, while pollution involves the environmental department. The powers and responsibilities of the two departments are like two sides of the same coin. When a pollution incident occurs, failures have inevitably occurred in the stages managed by both, meaning both bear some responsibility and both have grounds to intervene.

The current reality, however, is that “both should manage” has become “neither manages”. Despite the introduction of a series of laws and regulations, such as the *Solid Waste Law*, the *Soil Pollution Prevention and Control Law*, and the *Measures for the Management of Agricultural Film*, it seems that the more regulations there are, the more excuses the relevant departments find to shirk their responsibilities.

An expert in solid waste believes that the *Solid Waste Law*’s phrasing regarding the management of agricultural solid waste is overly vague, leaving a practical void in the management system for such waste.

Agricultural films, including plastic mulch, are the fourth most important agricultural production material after seeds, pesticides, and fertilisers. Due to a long-term emphasis on use over recovery, China’s mulch pollution problem is severe—nearly 300 million *mu* of land are covered with plastic mulch annually, with usage approaching 1.45 million tonnes, accounting for approximately 75% of global consumption.

Due to various constraints in recovery technology and equipment, the recovery and utilisation rate of agricultural film in China has long been less than two-thirds. In 2017, the former Ministry of Agriculture issued the *Agricultural Film Recovery Action Plan*, launching 100 demonstration counties for mulch treatment in the Northwest. It proposed that within two to three years, the recovery rate for the current season’s mulch in these demonstration counties should reach over 80%.

While concrete action has finally been taken to treat mulch, this only concerns “current season” recovery. The amount of residual mulch accumulated in China over many years has already exceeded one million tonnes.

According to monitoring data from the Ministry of Agriculture in 2016, all mulched farmland soil in China contains varying levels of mulch residue. In some local areas, the average residue per *mu* reaches 4–20 kg, with some plots exceeding 30 kg—equivalent to six layers of mulch. Residual mulch destroys soil structure, affects crop emergence, hinders root growth, and leads to reduced yields. There is currently no authoritative statistical data on the total economic losses in agricultural production caused by the long-term accumulation of plastic mulch nationwide.

Furthermore, a 2019 article by Zhang Bin and others from the Rural Economic Research Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs noted that the problem of mulch residue is particularly prominent in areas outside national project zones. Ultra-thin mulch still exists in large quantities on the market, and farmers have little incentive to recover residual films.

● In 2023, a CCTV reporter investigated the western Liaoning region and found that used plastic mulch was either abandoned by the roadside or burnt, producing clouds of smoke. Not only are farmers unwilling to recover it due to labour costs, but recovery companies are also operating at a loss; despite government subsidies, it is difficult to achieve profitability.

Yan Changrong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, estimated in an article that the cost of removing mulch to use peanut stalks as livestock feed is approximately 30–50 yuan per *mu*. Often, no one pays this cost, which means the plastic mulch disperses into the environment, becoming a significant source of plastic pollution.

Moreover, when plastic mulch is mixed into feed, it has numerous adverse effects on animal health, in severe cases threatening their lives and harming the economic interests of livestock farmers.

Plastic mulch not only endangers the soil and agriculture itself; wind-blown mulch also threatens public infrastructure. During the May Day holiday in 2021, the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed railway was suspended in the Dingzhou section of Hebei because plastic mulch became entangled in the overhead contact lines, leading to the suspension and delay of dozens of other high-speed trains.

News like “plastic mulch causing high-speed rail suspension” is merely the tip of the iceberg. Staff from the sub-district office and the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs have both told Old Li that there are far too many similar mulch pollution incidents nearby to manage them all.

Currently, Old Li’s primary demand is for an assessment of the pollution levels on his and neighbouring farmers’ land, and for soil remediation based on a scientific evaluation. This includes not only visible fragments of plastic mulch but also invisible microplastics.

He said: “I have been persistently reporting this, not just for myself, but for the surrounding villagers and the wellbeing of future generations. Our generation should not leave behind nothing but a scarred landscape.”

For Old Li, seeking help online was a desperate act after failing to resolve the issue through official channels. He has become increasingly anxious due to recent developments: after he appealed to government departments, the processing company accelerated its pace, and more plastic mulch has been blowing away. He suspects they intend to finish processing this batch of raw materials as quickly as possible before absconding. Since the processing plant was temporarily erected on farmland, they could simply walk away.

● Comparison photos of a peanut stalk storage site of the company involved, taken on 12 January and 7 March. The photos show that processing is nearly complete. Mixed white plastic mulch can be seen in the raw material piles.
If government departments are still arguing over who is responsible while poor mulch recovery allows companies to cause pollution, how can the environment and the vital interests of farmers be effectively protected? To allow a company to continue polluting when the facts are clear—only to later use the excuse that the “polluting entity is unclear” once they have made a clean getaway—is an unacceptable failure of governance.

The treatment of plastic mulch pollution requires not only a clear division of powers and responsibilities among government departments, but also reasonable solutions and detailed management measures.

Who will manage it? What can be done? Old Li needs an answer, and the polluted land needs one too.

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Thanks to Zhang Miao, Liu Jinmei, Tian Jing, and Zhou Ya

for their assistance during the writing of this article

Editor: Foodthink

Published by Foodthink