By Jérôme Pavie
Engineer at the Institut de l'Elevage, Caen (France), where he coordinates a livestock research system and is responsible for a working group on organic farming

The Institut de l'Elevage, or Livestock Institute, has a livestock reference searching system based on the monitoring of nearly 3000 farms. Of these, 250 are certified for organic production, mainly concentrating on dairy and beef production, and to a more marginal extent on sheep meat production. These farms, which have been monitored for several years, give rise to a large number of recordings and observations.

During the period 2000-2002, several national surveys were carried out and showed a high presence of bale wrapping on organic livestock farms. In good fodder production years (2000 and 2002), 51% of dairy farms and 42% of beef farms in our samples practised bale wrapping. This proportion is, in itself, a first surprise. Of course, the specifications for organic production limit the use of silage, which generally does not have a good image among organic producers. But bale wrapping is also characterised by its cost relative to hay, and by its consumption of plastic, and therefore fossil fuels. These two elements could have led to this practice being restricted.

In fact, this has not happened. On the contrary, bale wrapping emerges as an alternative technique to clamp silage, capable of providing improved fodder quality compared to hay. Its high level of DM, the absence of juice, the palatability of the fodder, the convenient management of stocks and the possibility of developing these harvests individually have won over a large proportion of livestock farmers, particularly those who are keen to maintain good animal productivity.

The other surprise concerns the size of the areas harvested. Among dairy and beef farmers, an average of nearly 14ha is being harvested per farm. So this is not a matter of "rescuing" wet hay, but rather a harvesting strategy which is one of a range of fodder crops used by producers. As for yields, taking account of the absence of mineral fertilisation, they are at the levels one would expect, with 3.2 to 3.3 tonnes DM harvested per hectare.
Whereas there are some elements that could have limited the practice of bale wrapping on organic farms, today its use is growing fast.

Bale wrapping in organic farms within the reference research system of the Institut de l'Elevage

Farms in the sample Farms practising bale wrapping
(%)		 Average area harvested (ha) Average yield (tDM/ha) Tonnes of DM harvested (tDM) Proportion of total DM harvested using bale wrapping (%)
Dairy cattle farms
2000 74 51 13.8 3.3 42 23
2001 94 43 13.6 2.6 34 22
Beef cattle farms
2001 53 30 15.6 3.0 43 23
2002 67 42 14.6 3.2 52 28

NB: The fodder year 2001 was a cold, damp year unfavourable for grass and early harvests, which explains the fall in yields and the percentage of farms practicing bale wrapping.

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