Silage Trends and Practices
The European silage market is currently facing a number of trends and challenges:
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The end-user market is highly fragmented, although the number of farmers is expected to reduce.
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Farm sizes continue to increase in Western Europe, creating the scale of heavy equipment and investment to potentially adopt clamp silage.
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Consolidation of film producers, wrapping machine suppliers, contractors and farmers throughout the silage film value chain is expected in the next 5 years.
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End-user markets are influenced by farming subsidies and relative prices of cattle and milk, as well as economic benefit of specific ensiling technologies.
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Silage stretch wrap is capturing market share from alternative technologies of silage film for clamps and bags, or silage storage in silos. Rate of conversion reduces as farms get bigger.
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Concerns about waste plastic film on farms are triggering regulatory pressures in the UK and other European countries, potentially leading to more stringent waste management regulations.
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Oil price volatility is triggering pricing pressure on resins and subsequent films, creating value chain disruption.
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Developing the market in less established regions of Eastern Europe - e.g. Poland and Russia. For example - European subsidies on milk production are shifting east, and will act as potential growth catalysts.
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Establishing the new application area of haylage, acceptance by the horse owner market, and setting the standards from haylage production, to wrapping and feeding.
Use the links on the left to access additional, country-specific, information. The information contained within this section is based on market research and industry news.
