Richmond, Va.-Virginia’s landscape- and other green-industry members are supporting a bill in the legislature to set up a training program in the state’s Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services for applicators of fertilizer and other regulated products. The bill, SB135, establishes guidelines for proper application of the regulated products and calls for an advisory group of stakeholders to be involved in establishing the regulations. “Our ‘green industry’ members support the training aspect of this bill and expect to be fully engaged in the stakeholder group and the development of the regulations,” Donna Pugh Johnson, Agribusiness Council president, told Green Markets. “These professionals want all who are in the business of turf and lawn care as contractor-applicators to be on a level playing field and there be no competitive disadvantages with those who are not properly trained.” She said the bill passed the Senate and is now being considered by the House Appropriations Committee. Jeff Miller, executive director of the Virginia Nursery and Landscape Assn., said SB135 replaces another bill requiring lawn-maintenance companies to do soil analyses before applying fertilizer. “As it was originally written,” Miller explained, “the state’s testing labs couldn’t come anywhere near meeting the requirement.” He said testing for organic fertilizers which doesn’t determine the nitrogen level could have been another problem. He said under SB135 any contractor or golf course operator applying fertilizer on non-agriculture land would have to go through a state training program, but no decision has been reached on parks and other municipal grounds, and funding is still yet to be determined.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain