AGRICULTURAL FILM | MATERIALS
Growth factor: reaping the benefits of agricultural film
From mulch film to greenhouse film, plastics can help to boost the production of everything from coffee to tomatoes. Lou Reade reports
Agricultural film could be as important to boosting crop yields as fertilisers and pest control chemicals, as they can help to retain moisture, filter out harmful radiation and ensure that the minimum amount of chemicals are used and retained. Delegates at last year’s Agricultural Films
conference, organised by AMI, learnt some of these benefits – including projects to recover these films from the landscape. Damien Cabaret, busi- ness development manager at Trioplast in France, told delegates about his company’s ‘Trio-Smart’ project to recycle LLDPE agricultural films from one year to the next. Here, farmers are part of the project, and small tunnel films are developed according to their needs. Also, they do not ‘buy’ the film – but instead ‘rent’ it according to how much they need. Each year, film is collected, recycled, regranulated and used to make new film. “The film – and granules – remain the property of
Trioplast,” said Cabaret. He said that the market for small tunnels in the
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Nantes area is around 2,000 tonnes of LLDPE, equivalent to around €4m. One challenge was to reduce the level of dirt – which was as high as 80% – before recycling the film. Also, the initial target for the use of regranu- lates in each new batch of film was 10%, but after four years of testing this was raised to around 90%.
Crop improvement One of the most important types of agricultural film is for mulching – which keeps moisture in the soil and prevents weed growth. Braskem was determined to help Brazil’s coffee industry remain the world leader, by developing a mulch film to boost crop yield. In collaboration with the Federal University of Uberlandia, and a local farm in Monte Carmelo, it developed a series of three-layer polyethylene mulch films. The films were 40 microns thick, 1.6m wide and intended for use over 24 to 30 months. The project evaluated two double-sided films: both had black internal layers, but one had a silver external layer, the other
Main image: Braskem has teamed up with a local farm to
develop a film that boosts coffee production
April 2018 | FILM & SHEET EXTRUSION 13
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