Background Agriculture generates a considerable amount of waste from plastics, accounting for 10% by weight of the total plastic in landfills. This is particularly significant in European countries compared to other continents, since European agriculture is very intensive and is concentrated in regions where other human activities operate and compete, such as tourism and industrial activities. An increasing demand for mulching and solarization in agriculture has been posing a serious environmental threat by extending the use of plastic films to cover plants. Plastic residues are often left in the soil at the end of each crop. Although it is possible to find biodegradable films on the market, it is difficult to tailor their thickness and durability to the specific length of time it takes for each cultivation. Objectives The Biocoagri project aimed to develop a sprayable resistant film made up of a water solution of natural polymers. This would be an innovative and sustainable approach allowing a biodegradable film to be sprayed onto plants as an alternative to plastic coatings. The barrier films would be adapted for use in either mulching or solarisation and would be resistant for the weeks or months required. The project intended to blend different natural polymers and additives to obtain a varnish formulation. It would then test the rheology of the water dispersion and the rate of film formation to allow an optimisation of the varnish enabling it to be applied with spraying equipment. It looked to test the film prototypes to determine their fundamental functional properties such as their radiometric properties to predict the thermal performance of the films. The team also envisaged comparing the innovative coatings to classical non-biodegradable and biodegradable films already on the market. Results This experimental project made significant progress towards the objective of obtaining a commercially viable biodegradable alternative to plastic coatings in mulching and solarization. It developed biodegradable, waterborne polymer-based formulations that are practical to use and produce good results. The project selected polymers derived from natural renewable sources and checked their film-forming characteristics. From these results it developed a variety of biodegradable sprayable coatings for black mulching, coloured mulching and barrier films for solarization. It put the most promising of these through practical agronomical tests at the Universities of Bari, Naples (Italy) and Osnabruck (Germany). The tests revealed coatings with agronomical results comparable with those obtained with traditional plastic mulching films. The spray coatings were practical to use and successfully achieved their functional aim of modifying the microenvironment underneath. Furthermore, they gave a more pleasing aesthetic result than traditional plastic coatings. At the end of their use, the coatings did not have to be removed, but were shattered where they were and buried in the soil where they degraded naturally. Rather than looking at their compostability, this project is particularly innovative in looking at the biodegradability of the coatings in soil and ecotoxity testing of the soils to check for any phytotoxic side-effects. The technology is easy to apply in other geographic regions and could be developed to be used in other areas such as post-harvesting protection and protecting fruits against premature ripening. Transferability is encouraged since many farmers are already accustomed to spray technologies through current applications of fertilizers, pesticides and fumigants. The main disadvantage of biodegradable agricultural films is that they are still around four times more expensive than conventional plastic ones, even taking into account the savings in disposal costs. The project foresees however that the technology could become more affordable as future developments improve the methodology or as society takes into account the environmental costs of the traditional alternatives.