The report of the Sustainable Silage project pilot activities and the silage cost calculator are now available

At the end of 2025, the three-year cross-border cooperation project “Sustainable Silage” came to an end. The core focus of the project was testing various environmentally friendly practices in different types of farms in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland. Modern silage production must align with environmental objectives and obligations. Efficient use of resources, reduction of nutrient losses, and preservation of feed quality help achieve both economic benefits and environmental protection. Silage production plays an important role in reducing nutrient losses, and all stages of the production process must be considered. Therefore, the pilot programme activities were designed to cover several topics, including the selection of nutrient efficient grass seed mixtures, optimal grassland fertilization, improvement of silage-making processes, reduction of silage effluent volumes, management of plastic waste and nets from silage production, and the development of maize silage production.

The completed report summarizes the results of pilot activities and trials carried out by 26 cattle farms that participated in the pilot programme during 2023–2024. The report reflects cooperation that brings together the experiences and knowledge of livestock farmers, advisors, and experts from neighboring countries—Finland, Latvia, and Estonia. Each chapter includes practical examples compiled by experts and advisors, along with recommendations for farms that can be used and adapted by all feed producers according to the needs and context of their own farms. From the perspective of production efficiency, it is important for farms to obtain as detailed an overview as possible of the costs associated with feed production. For this reason, a silage cost calculation tool was developed through cooperation between the project team and experts. Using this calculator, producers can enter data specific to their own farms and calculate the costs of grass, cereal, pea, and maize silage per tonne and per hectare.

The pilot programme results report and the silage cost calculator are available on the project webspace here: https://centralbaltic.eu/project/sustainable-silage/103-project-materials/

The pilot programme was implemented within the framework of the cross-border cooperation project “Sustainable Silage”, co-financed by the INTERREG Central Baltic Programme 2014–2020. The project team sincerely thanks all 26 farms from Estonia, Finland, and Latvia who contributed their time, knowledge, and experience to the project. The success of the project was supported by the following project partners: the Estonian Chamber of Agriculture and Commerce, the Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge, the Estonian University of Life Sciences, the Latvian Farmers’ Parliament, the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, ProAgria Western Finland, and the Natural Resources Institute of Finland.