China's agricultural film industry market has enormous potential for competition in the future

Statistics show that last year, the production of agricultural film enterprises above designated size in China reached 1.874 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%. At the same time, the application area of agricultural film products continues to expand. According to statistics from the agricultural department, the purchase volume of agricultural film in China reached 2.4 million tons from 2011 to 2012. Among them, the greenhouse film is about 1.1 million tons, covering an area of 58 million acres; 1.31 million tons of plastic film, covering an area of 373 million acres. These data strongly demonstrate to us that the agricultural film industry has broad market prospects, but how to develop this industry well still requires some effort.

The agricultural film industry has great potential

The rapid development of the agricultural film industry has made a huge contribution to improving land output rate, enhancing agricultural disaster resistance, achieving stable and high yields in agriculture, promoting the optimization of planting structure, enhancing the effective supply of agricultural products, and increasing farmers' income. This is of greater significance for China's situation of limited arable land and poor natural conditions.

In recent years, with the acceleration of new urbanization and agricultural modernization, the development space of agricultural film has become increasingly large. With the new goal of "ecological high-quality agriculture" (which is to fully apply modern and future new energy, new materials, new equipment, new information, new biotechnology, and other armed agricultural high-tech systems and production models), this has also put forward updated and higher requirements for agricultural film, which is also a major development opportunity.

Modern agriculture puts forward new requirements for agricultural film

At present, China has a complete range of agricultural film products, making it the country with the highest production level of thin film in the world. Various single-layer and multi-layer composite greenhouse films with functions such as longevity, dripping, insulation, defogging, antibacterial, light conversion, and high transparency, as well as plastic films with functions such as dripping, weeding, warming, degradation, and insect prevention, as well as specialized agricultural films for sunlight greenhouses, vegetables, fruits, flowers, tobacco, cotton, silage, etc., have been widely used. Among them, there are innovative products with Chinese characteristics, suitable for the national conditions, and international competitiveness. The quality and technical level of some products have reached international advanced levels. The structure of agricultural film products has been optimized to a certain extent, and functional agricultural film products have accounted for about 50% of the total agricultural film production.

But while seeing the industry's achievements, advantages, and bright prospects, we should also be aware of the problems and shortcomings that exist in the industry. Firstly, there is still a significant gap in overall technology and management level compared to developed countries; The second is low production concentration, overcapacity, and low proportion of mid to high end and functional agricultural films, which leads to disorderly competition and market chaos; The third issue is that the variety, quality, and function cannot fully meet the requirements of modern agricultural cultivation technology and the country's high-quality, efficient, environmental protection, and resource conservation.

Two Issues to Pay Attention to in the Development of Agricultural Film

Research and development should aim towards functionalization and continue to develop functional agricultural film products with Chinese characteristics that are popular among farmers, while improving their promotion and application. Efforts will be made to increase the proportion of functional agricultural films in the total amount of agricultural film products, and to increase the development and use of specialized films.

The functions and lifespan of greenhouse films, such as longevity and droplet defogging, are developing simultaneously. Popularize and promote coated droplets and insulation greenhouse films with synchronous functions and lifespan; Research, improve, and promote eco-friendly film products that are more suitable for converting harmful ultraviolet light and useless green light in sunlight into red, blue, and purple light required for plant photosynthesis.

Efforts should be made to achieve environmental protection and clean production in agriculture through plastic film, and efforts should be made to continue increasing the development and application of functional films and new materials. On the one hand, developing and popularizing functional plastic films such as longevity, drip weeding, warming, and pest control to ensure that spring and autumn plastic films can still be recycled. The recyclable plastic films, such as aging resistant and silver black, produced by some enterprises in Gansu with a usage time of up to 18 months, are very popular. Henan Yinfeng Plastic Co., Ltd. has also achieved good results in the development and application of silver black dual color biodegradable plastic films and won the Excellent Achievement Award from the Plastic Association. On the other hand, accelerate the development, research, and application of new resins such as modified PET anti-aging film. We need to accelerate the progress of fully biodegradable plastic film farmland experiments.

To promote technological progress and innovation in the plastic processing industry, the China Plastics Association has clearly defined the development trend and direction of "functionalization, lightweighting, and microforming" in the plastic processing industry. At present, there are eight urgent issues to be solved in the development of the agricultural film industry, such as the modification of biodegradable plastics with polylactic acid; Industrialization of high transparency function and longevity synchronous thin films and high-performance water-saving equipment; Long term photoecology and light conversion agricultural film production technology; Key technologies for processing and equipment of bio based plastics; Recycling and high-value utilization of waste plastic films; Promotion of long-term droplet defogging agricultural functional greenhouse films and polymer based nanocomposite coatings; The technology and application of extending the efficacy of agricultural functional covering materials; Research on the technology of agricultural film thinning coating coating device, etc.

It is important to address the issue of self-cleaning the surface of agricultural film and maintain its transparency for a longer period of time. Especially after the successful development of functional and lifespan synchronous films, due to the influence of natural environment, this long-life functional film needs to address surface self-cleaning even more. Therefore, accelerating the research and development of new resins, nanoscale, insulation agents, and anti-static agents, while strengthening the self-cleaning treatment of film surfaces, requires a difficult choice between technically feasible and low-cost.

To accelerate the development of light conversion agents with high spectral matching, synchronous fluorescence attenuation and agricultural film lifespan, reliable guarantees should be provided for the production and utilization of specialized functional films such as light conversion greenhouse films, light conversion insulation films, and light conversion reflective films. At the same time, research institutions and enterprises with conditions should study the production characteristics of various characteristic fruits and vegetables, analyze the different wavelengths of light required, and gradually establish a database in this area to create conditions for the development of specialized films for the use of characteristic fruits and vegetables.

We need to strengthen the research and development efforts of high-end greenhouse films, and increase the promotion and application of online coated Po films and multifunctional composite films. The high-end agricultural film market has broad prospects and is an important area for the high-end strategy of the agricultural film industry, as well as an important development direction for future agricultural films.

We need to strengthen the research and promotion of functional coating liquids, accelerate the production of ultra-thin coating equipment for agricultural films, accelerate the localization of efficient, energy-saving, and intelligent multi-layer supply equipment, and provide equipment and technical support for the agricultural film industry.

The current classification of agricultural film

Multipurpose film: This type of film is not only used for seedling cultivation and field coverage of rice, cotton, corn, tobacco, and flowers, but also as a flood prevention film, lining irrigation channels and water storage tanks, greatly improving water utilization efficiency. In addition, agricultural film is also widely used in the cultivation of edible fungi, storage of Tibetan green feed, and so on.

To make the longevity film resistant to aging and easy to recycle, adding anti-aging agents during the production process can extend the lifespan of the film by 2-4 times. The plastic film still has a certain strength after being peeled off, and can still be used after recycling, which not only reduces costs but also reduces the amount of residual film in the field.

The thickness of this thin film is only half that of a regular film, so the weight is reduced by half and the corresponding usage cost is also reduced by half. The transparency and insulation performance of this film are also better than ordinary films, and each ton can cover 436 acres of farmland, which is twice that of ordinary agricultural films.

Insect proof film is a multi-layer film made of ordinary ethylene and low-density ethylene. This type of film only reflects ultraviolet rays from sunlight in all directions and suppresses the reflection of visible light. Pests are afraid to approach the film due to their fear of ultraviolet light, so they can have a pest control effect. It is particularly effective in preventing and controlling aphids, red spiders, and other pests with strong drug resistance.

Disease prevention film is a specialized film, such as corn film, cotton film, melon and vegetable film, etc. It is produced by utilizing specific diseases of different crops. In the production process of disease prevention films, a specific pesticide is added in a targeted manner. This type of plastic film has no residue, no pollution, and significant disease prevention effects, and has been widely used in many places for planting.

Several new types of agricultural films that farmers are eager for

The common problem that farmers encounter when using ordinary agricultural film is the problem of weeding inside the film. Grass killing agricultural film, which has increased its weed killing effect compared to ordinary agricultural film, is very convenient to use, labor-saving, drug saving, thermal insulation, moisturizing, and has good light transmission, and can effectively solve the problem of weeding inside the film. At present, grass killing agricultural film has been put into trial use in some rural areas in China.

Perishable agricultural film. Waste agricultural film is not easy to rot and has become a public hazard in rural areas. Therefore, farmers hope that manufacturers can produce new types of perishable agricultural films as soon as possible.

Cold resistant and anti-aging agricultural film The ordinary agricultural film farmers use now is neither cold resistant nor anti-aging, easy to crack, and has a life of only one year. It is understood that at present, the production of cold resistant and anti-aging agricultural film in China only accounts for 20% of the total production of agricultural film, which is far from the demand of farmers. Nowadays, farmers urgently need a new type of agricultural film with high transparency, high insulation and moisture retention, cold resistance and aging resistance, and long-lasting and multifunctional properties.

Different colored agricultural films have different absorption and refraction of light, and their impact on various crops is also different, resulting in significant differences in economic benefits. The yield of tomatoes and cucumbers covered with red agricultural film will increase. Therefore, farmers are eager for manufacturers to produce various colored agricultural films to meet the needs of different agricultural crops.