Reviewed August 2026 against US EPA facts-and-figures data, the FAO’s 2021 assessment of agricultural plastics, and a 2021 European Commission report on agricultural plastics.

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Agricultural Packaging: Types, Materials & Waste Data

Agricultural packaging is the umbrella term for every container, film, sack, crate, and wrap that moves a harvested product from field to shelf — and it is also, measurably, a waste problem. The US EPA’s most recent detailed breakdown puts total US containers-and-packaging waste generation at 82.2 million tons across all categories in 2018, with 11.5 million tons of that specifically wood pallets and wood packaging. Globally, agrifood value chains use about 12.5 million tonnes of plastic products a year in plant and animal production, per the FAO.

This article is a reference for anyone sourcing agricultural packaging solutions, agricultural product packaging, or agricultural packaging supplies — the market size, the waste figures regulators actually publish, the material categories, and a working comparison of the innovations claiming to fix the waste problem. It also covers the V8 agriculture waste baler, a piece of compaction equipment that shows up in the same searches for a different reason: it deals with the waste packaging creates, not the packaging itself.

Agricultural Packaging Market Size and Growth

The global agricultural packaging market was sized at $9.18 billion in 2025, with industry analysts projecting growth to $15.68 billion by 2035, a compound annual growth rate of 5.5%, according to Towards Packaging (forecast as published in September 2026). That growth is not evenly distributed: biodegradable packaging across all sectors, not only farming, is forecast to grow faster, at a 10.20% CAGR from 2026 to 2035, per Towards Packaging. No published forecast isolates biodegradable packaging within agriculture.

On the raw-material side, the FAO expects global demand for greenhouse, mulching and silage films to rise 50%, from 6.1 million tonnes in 2018 to 9.5 million tonnes in 2030. These are the numbers behind every “agricultural packaging market” search: a market growing in dollar terms while its plastic-intensive core faces mounting waste and disposal pressure, which is exactly why the biodegradable sub-segment is outgrowing it.

Agricultural Packaging Waste: The EPA and Global Numbers

Here is the gap worth naming plainly: neither the EPA nor any global tracker publishes a single “agricultural packaging waste” tonnage. The EPA’s Facts and Figures dataset reports containers and packaging as one municipal solid waste category (82.2 million tons in 2018) and wood pallets as a distinct line within it (11.5 million tons), but it does not break out horticultural crates, crop-input bags, or mulch film as their own category. If you need a number for a specific packaging stream, the EPA’s page is the source to check periodically — it is the country’s authoritative containers-and-packaging dataset — but treat “agricultural packaging” as a segment still waiting on its own line item there.

What does exist, region by region:

• United States: agricultural plastic consumption of roughly 1.56 million tonnes annually, per The plastic footprint of U.S. agriculture, an American University study published in 2025.
• European Union: 2.4 million tonnes of the 54.1 million tonnes of plastics produced in Europe in 2022 went to agricultural use, per a 2025 peer-reviewed study. A 2021 European Commission report estimates that collecting non-biodegradable mulch film removes about 166,000 tonnes of soil a year from EU fields, soil that leaves with the plastic.
• Canada: Cleanfarms, the industry stewardship program, reported collecting and recycling 5,000 tons of crop input and agricultural film plastic in 2022 (Modern Farmer) — a useful benchmark for what an organized, farmer-facing collection scheme can actually process in a year, as distinct from what’s generated.
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For Australian and UK-specific agricultural packaging waste tonnages, no equivalent aggregated dataset turned up in this review; ABARES and Defra are the agencies to check directly, since neither currently appears to publish agricultural packaging as a standalone waste category the way the EPA does for containers broadly.

Types of Agricultural Packaging

Agricultural packaging is categorized by the stage of the supply chain it operates at, not by the material it’s made from. Each type answers a different question — what touches the crop, what bundles it, and what moves it in bulk.

• Primary Packaging: Directly contacts the produce to protect and maintain freshness.
  • Examples: plastic bags for fruit, vacuum-sealed pouches for perishables, cartons for eggs.
• Secondary Packaging: Aggregates several primary packages for efficient handling.
  • Examples: cardboard boxes holding multiple bags of produce, crates of vacuum-packed items.
• Tertiary Packaging: Bulk packaging for agricultural products, optimized for storage and transport logistics.
  • Examples: pallets, shrink wrap, and other materials that combine secondary packages for freight.

Selecting the right type for a given product balances material cost against environmental impact and shelf-life requirement — a decision that looks different for a berry grower shipping overnight than for a grain exporter loading a vessel.

Packaging of Agricultural Products by Product Type

The right format depends mostly on how the product breathes, bruises and ships. Common choices by product:

Food packaging is by far the larger plastic stream. The FAO estimates agrifood chains use 37.3 million tonnes of plastic a year in food packaging, against 12.5 million tonnes in plant and animal production (FAO, 2021).

Materials in Agricultural Packaging Solutions

The material choice inside each packaging type is where most of the waste-reduction opportunity — and most of the market’s dollar growth — actually sits.

• Paper and Cardboard:
  • Recyclable, widely accepted by municipal recycling streams.
  • Suitable for fruit, vegetables, and lightweight goods.
  • Straightforward for custom printing and branding.
• Plastics:
  • Versatile and durable; the dominant material by volume in agricultural packaging — the 12.5 million tonnes of global agricultural plastic use cited above is overwhelmingly this category.
  • Faces the disposal and soil-contamination pressure documented in the EU mulch-film study above (166,000 tonnes of soil loss/year from film removal).
• Jute and Burlap:
  • Natural fibers, biodegradable and reusable, with good breathability for certain commodities.
  • Common in secondary and tertiary packaging, especially for grain and produce sacks.
• Wooden Crates and Pallets:
  • Robust and reusable for bulk and heavy products.
  • A sizeable line in the EPA‘s US packaging data at 11.5 million tons generated in 2018, behind paper and plastics — worth noting because “wood packaging” and “agricultural packaging” overlap heavily in practice but are not the same reporting category.

Biodegradable materials — starch-based films, cellulose, polylactic acid (PLA), bagasse, flax and hemp fiber — are the fastest-growing slice of packaging overall, per the 10.20% CAGR cited above. The catch is shelf stability: a material chosen to break down at end of life needs testing against your own transit and storage conditions.

Agricultural Chemical Packaging: Special Rules

Agricultural chemical packaging — containers for fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide, and other regulated inputs — is a distinct sub-market from produce packaging, governed by hazard labeling and container-return rules rather than shelf-life science. In the US, empty pesticide containers fall under EPA container and containment regulations administered alongside state pesticide-control agencies; triple-rinsing and container recycling programs run through agrochemical-industry stewardship bodies rather than general municipal recycling. In Canada, Cleanfarms runs a parallel collection stream for empty pesticide and fertilizer containers alongside its 5,000-tonne agricultural film program cited above. If you’re sourcing or disposing of chemical packaging specifically, check with the relevant state agriculture department or Cleanfarms directly — the rules differ meaningfully from produce-packaging disposal and change by jurisdiction, so no single figure here would stay accurate across US states and Australian territories alike.

The V8 Agriculture Waste Baler

The V8 hydraulic baler is compaction equipment built for exactly the packaging waste stream described above — silage wrap, mulch film, feed bags, cardboard, and other farm plastics that would otherwise go to landfill or open burning. Per LSM Engineering’s published specifications, the V8 runs a 33-second cycle time, and per Smart Waste Solutions‘ Australian listing, a V8 produces 120–150 kg bales and can compress over 9 m³ of cardboard or over 14 m³ of LDPE plastic into a single bale.

That’s the entire commercial case for a baler on a farm or packing shed: it doesn’t reduce how much packaging you buy, but it collapses the volume of what you have to haul away, cutting the number of skip-bin or transfer-station trips and — where a recycler pays by the compacted tonne rather than the loose load — improving what you recover for baled plastic versus loose. The calculator below turns those two published figures (bale weight, cycle time) into a farm-specific estimate.

7 Innovations in Agricultural Packaging Reducing Waste

With the market and waste picture established, here are the seven packaging technologies actually driving the waste-reduction side of that growth curve.

1. Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP)

Modified Atmosphere Packaging alters the internal gas composition of a package — lowering oxygen, raising carbon dioxide — to slow spoilage and respiration. It is widely used for fresh produce, meats, and bakery products, extending shelf life and cutting spoilage-related waste without added chemical preservatives.

• Suitable for: berries, leafy greens, cut fruit, some grains.
• Benefits: longer shelf life, better flavor and texture retention, less waste in the supply chain.
• Consideration: requires a reliable gas-barrier film to hold the seal through transport.

Learn more about how MAP works on Wikipedia.

2. Modified Atmosphere/Modified Humidity Packaging (MA/MH)

MA/MH extends MAP by also controlling humidity, preventing both dehydration and excess dampness inside the package. That dual control matters most for high-moisture produce, where gas control alone leaves wilting or condensation-driven mold unaddressed.

• Typical applications: leafy greens, mushrooms, berries.
• Benefits: reduces both microbial spoilage and wilting losses in the same package.
• Materials: specialized films engineered for combined moisture and gas control.

Discover MA/MH packaging in detail on Wikipedia.

3. Active Packaging

Active packaging uses materials that interact with the package interior — oxygen scavengers, ethylene absorbers — to actively suppress spoilage rather than passively contain the product. This is a step beyond MAP: instead of just setting the initial atmosphere, active packaging keeps correcting it through the shipment.

• Applications: packaged fruit, vegetables, meats.
• Advantages: reduces mold and off-odors, extends usable shelf life for health-sensitive retail categories.
• Sustainability angle: increasingly paired with biodegradable film substrates.

Learn more about active packaging on Wikipedia.

4. Vacuum Packing

Vacuum packing removes air from the package before sealing, eliminating the oxygen that aerobic bacteria and fungi need to spoil the product. It extends shelf life for meats, cheeses, and many fresh-cut fruits and vegetables without added preservatives.

• Most suitable for: meats, dairy, fresh-cut produce, grains.
• Benefits: reduced oxidation, protection during handling and transport.
• Consideration: depends on a reliable barrier film — plastics or plastic hybrids remain the standard.

Read more about vacuum packing on Wikipedia.

5. Biodegradable and Edible Packaging Materials

Biodegradable and edible packaging — starch-based films, cellulose, PLA, bagasse, flax and hemp fiber — is the innovation category growing fastest, at the 10.20% CAGR cited earlier. Its main risk is shelf stability: materials built to break down at end of life need testing against real transit and storage times.

• Biodegradable materials: starch-based films, cellulose, PLA, bagasse, flax, hemp.
• Edible packaging: coatings or wraps safe to consume or compost.
• Trade-off to plan for: match the material's degradation timeline to your actual transit and shelf time — a PLA film that biodegrades quickly in a compost pile can also degrade too quickly in a warm truck.

Discover more about edible and biodegradable packaging on Wikipedia.

6. Reusable Packaging Systems (RPCs and More)

Reusable Plastic Containers (RPCs), wooden crates, and jute sacks are built for repeated handling, cleaning, and reuse cycles rather than single-trip disposal. They shift the cost model from per-unit material spend to a durable asset with a collection-and-sanitizing loop attached.

• Typical users: fresh produce shippers, grocery retailers, exporters.
• Benefits: durability, reduced packaging waste, favorable return-on-investment once reuse cycles exceed the break-even count.
• Requirement: only works where the supply chain can actually run the return-and-sanitize loop — without that logistics piece, RPCs just become one-way containers with a higher unit cost.

See how reusable trays work at Wikipedia.

7. Minimalist and Smart Packaging Technologies

Minimalist packaging reduces material volume through streamlined design and smarter stacking, without sacrificing protection. Layered on top of that, digital tracking — RFID, QR codes, blockchain traceability — adds intelligent handling and monitoring without adding material.

• Advantages: less material waste, more efficient storage and movement, lower cost per unit shipped.
• Smart features: blockchain traceability for provenance and quality assurance — see how the Farmonaut Traceability Platform provides farm-to-table transparency.
• Sustainable impact: material savings and efficiency gains reinforce each other rather than trading off.

Comparison Table: 7 Agricultural Packaging Innovations

Where Farmonaut Fits: Data, Not Packaging

Farmonaut does not manufacture, sell, or distribute agricultural packaging, chemical packaging, or balers. What it provides is the satellite and data layer that sits upstream of packaging decisions — because the right packaging choice depends on knowing what condition the crop is actually in and how far it has to travel. Specifically:

• Satellite-based crop health monitoring that informs harvest timing, which in turn determines how much shelf-life margin a packaging format needs to cover.
• Farm Management Platform for tracking resource use and operational data tied to packaging and post-harvest decisions.
• Blockchain-based product traceability, the same technology underpinning the smart-packaging category above — provenance data that travels with the product regardless of which packaging format carries it.
• Fleet management tools for the transport leg that determines how much time a package spends in transit — the variable every packaging trade-off above is ultimately built around.
• Carbon footprinting for measuring the emissions impact of packaging and logistics choices, useful for sustainability reporting alongside whichever packaging materials a grower or shipper selects.
• Satellite Farm Data API and its developer documentation, for teams building packaging or logistics decision tools that need field-level data as an input.

Agricultural Packaging Companies

Mordor Intelligence names Sonoco, Mondi, Greif, Pactiv and Amcor as the largest agricultural packaging companies. It calls the market moderately fragmented, with regional specialists alongside the global groups. These are the names most buyers will meet:

• Amcor: flexible and rigid plastic packaging. It completed its merger with Berry Global, a major farm-film supplier, on 30 April 2025 (Amcor release).
• Mondi: paper sacks and flexible packaging for seed, feed and fertilizer.
• Greif: drums, jerrycans and intermediate bulk containers, widely used for agrochemicals.
• Sonoco: rigid, paper and flexible consumer and industrial packaging.
• Smurfit Westrock: corrugated boxes and trays for fresh produce. It was formed in July 2024 when Smurfit Kappa combined with WestRock (Packaging Dive).
• LC Packaging: a Dutch family firm making big bags (FIBCs), jute sacks, net bags and cardboard for farm produce (LC Packaging).
• IFCO: pools reusable plastic containers (RPCs) for fruit and vegetables, collected, washed and reissued in a closed loop (IFCO).

For small orders, a regional distributor that stocks bags, cartons and crates from several of these makers is often cheaper than buying direct. Ask any supplier for food-contact certificates and tested shelf-life data for your crop.

Checklist: Choosing Agricultural Packaging Suppliers

This checklist doesn't expire the way a price or tonnage figure does — use it to evaluate any agricultural packaging supplier or solution, regardless of when you're reading this.

• Match packaging to shelf-time, not just crop type. A berry needing 3 days to retail and one needing 10 need different MAP gas mixes or different materials entirely — ask the supplier for their tested shelf-life data under your actual transit time, not a generic figure.
• Ask for the degradation timeline in writing if you're buying biodegradable film. Request the supplier's tested shelf-stability window before switching a running product line.
• Check whether reusable packaging math actually closes. RPCs and durable crates only beat single-use economics if your supply chain can run the return-and-sanitize loop — confirm the collection logistics before committing capital to reusable containers.
• For chemical packaging, confirm the container-return program before signing. Rules vary by US state and by country — verify with your state agriculture department, or with Cleanfarms if operating in Canada, rather than assuming your produce-packaging recycler also handles chemical containers.
• If citing a market or waste figure, check the source's publication date first. The EPA's containers-and-packaging dataset is not on a fixed annual release; confirm you're citing its current figure at the EPA's Facts and Figures page rather than an older cached number.
• Track your own packaging-related emissions and logistics data using tools like carbon footprinting and fleet management so packaging decisions are made against real transit-time and emissions numbers rather than assumptions.

FAQ

Conclusion

Agricultural packaging sits at a $9.18 billion global market in 2025, heading toward $15.68 billion by 2035 on Towards Packaging's forecast, with the fastest growth concentrated in biodegradable formats even as they carry a documented shelf-life trade-off. The waste side of the ledger is real but fragmented across sources — 82.2 million tons of US containers-and-packaging waste, 12.5 million tonnes of global agricultural plastic, and no single tracker that unifies them into one "agricultural packaging waste" figure. Use the checklist above, not a single statistic, to evaluate any packaging supplier or format, because the numbers behind this article will move and the checklist won't.

For the data layer that sits upstream of packaging decisions — crop health, traceability, fleet, and carbon tracking — explore Farmonaut's satellite, AI, and blockchain platform.