Lucerne Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Hay, Chaff, Silage, Others), By End-use (Food Industry, Feed Industry, Others) And Regional Forecast, 2024-2032

Lucerne or Alfalfa is a perennial, temperate, deep-rooted legume. It is grown as an important fodder crop in many countries across the world. Lucerne is used for grazing, hay and silage, as well as green manure and cover crops. It’s nitrogen-fixing ability in soil and use as an animal feed prominently improve agricultural efficiency.

Over the years, the popularity of alfalfa and its potential for human consumption have increased. Recently, with the increasing demand for organic food, scientists have paid more and more attention to lucerne in the food industry. In parts of Russia, China, and the U.S, green alfalfa has been used as human food. In addition, lucerne demand is also driven by its high nutrient content in animal feed, as it is a rich source for protein and energy that helps improve performance, overall maintenance and growth of the livestock. 

Lucerne is considered a premium feed for livestock as it provides a higher quality feed than most other plant species, either as fresh feed or conserved fodder. Hay promotes growth, performance, milk production, and reproduction in livestock animals, which increases its desirability among the ranchers and farmers.

Alfalfa is usually consumed in grounded pill form in order to control and prevent certain diseases. In Chinese and Indian society, doctors use the young leaves of alfalfa to treat diseases related to the digestive tract, arthritis, and water retention. Due to the phytoestrogen content in alfalfa, it is known to regulate the menstrual cycle and stimulate the milk of breastfeeding women. Thus, these factors are expected to drive the demand of lucerne/alfalfa in upcoming years.

The establishment stage includes germination and survival of the seedlings in the first year. It takes at least a year for a new lucerne booth to be fully completed. Alfalfa hay involves high capital costs (such as haymaking and irrigation equipment, storage sheds) and can be labor intensive. Moreover, lucerne silage usually costs more than producing hay, because of variable costs of inputs used in cultivation such as water, fertilizer, and fuel, also impacts the overall price of the product, which is anticipated to restraint the market growth in the forecasted years.

Key Players Covered:

The leading manufacturers operating in the global Lucerne market are Al Dahra Holding LLC, Alfalfa Monegros, S.L., Anderson Hay & Grain Co., Inc., Grupo Osés, Gruppo Carli, Haykingdom Inc., Al Dahra ACX Global, Cubeit Hay Co., S&W Seed Company, Bailey Farms, Inc., and others.

By type, hay segment is expected to hold the largest share, owing to its wide use in livestock and the pressure on livestock sector to meet the growing demand for high-value animal protein. Lucerne hay promotes an excellent live weight and an increase in milk production. As an important nitrogen-fixing rotation crop, this helps to ensure the sustainability of the farm. Successful alfalfa growers can use high-quality hay to achieve high yields.

The silage segment is also expected to witness growth in the forthcoming years, owing to its nutritive value in dairy farms. Lucerne silage can generally retain more nutrients, due to reduced leaf loss. It is enticing for dairy producers as it’s nutritive value can be preserved for a longer period of time, especially during winters, because of silages’ water content. For livestock, wet feed is also more palatable and easier to digest, especially in hot, dry climates. Alfalfa silage is more suitable for total mixed rations (TMR) for ruminants.

Feed industry is anticipated to hold the significant share, due to lucerne traditional use as major feed crop and its popularity as most nutritious animal feed among others. It is widely available, highly palatable, and reasonably priced, which makes its utilization much more feasible.  It is a rich source of minerals, vitamins, and it also contains up to 22% of crude protein. Feeding animals alfalfa helps to produce better quality wool, meat, milk and other products.

Food industry is expected to be the fastest growing segment, owing to increasing demand for natural ingredients in food. Lucerne has been incorporated into various recipes such as tea, croquettes, soufflés, puddings, soups, and raw and cooked salads.

Regional Analysis

North America is expected to hold the largest share, owing to the increasing demand for dairy and meat products. The U.S. livestock industry is expected to increase production in the next ten years, and this expansion reflects several factors such as technological advancements and rising livestock numbers. The U.S is the world's major exporters of lucerne hay. With the increasing meat and milk production in developing countries, the use of lucerne hay as an animal feed is also growing, which may continue to promote the development of the lucerne market.

Asia Pacific is expected to be market, owing to regions’ rapid transition toward larger-scale commercial dairy production, with enhanced feed management. The composition of Chinese dairy farms is changing rapidly, from a large number of small "backyard farms" with fewer than 10 cows to increasingly medium and large farms. Compared to other forages and feed grains, lucerne is an excellent source of digestible protein, fiber, minerals and vitamins for dairy cows, and its cost is very competitive. The significant increase in large dairy farms in China has increased the demand for alfalfa, especially high-quality Lucerne, which is anticipated to drive the regional market growth.

Segmentation

Key Industry Developments:

• In July 2021, The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food of Canada, announced an investment of more than $2.6 million in the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association (CFGA) to support three projects that will use artificial intelligence to assess and improve the growth of alfalfa and develop the Canadian grasslands carbon offset system.


• In May 2021, The Powell Research and Extension Center (PREC) north of Powell has conducted an alfalfa variety experiment. Participating companies provided 29 varieties for the project, including 17 conventional and 12 Roundup-ready varieties. The goal of this project is to determine the performance of alfalfa varieties when grown in the Big Horn Basin climate using local water sources.