Last week the Schneider youngplants Management Team was on a business trip in Lithuania to visit growers from the Baltic region. They were invited by their Lithuanian partner company, Daigelis, which is a wholesaler company of young plants, seeds and additional components for flower growers.
Being dedicated to its customers Daigelis has been paying attention to its clients and tries to make the growers’ lives easier, helping them to thrive, not just as individuals, but as a community as well. The members of Daigelis proudly state that they have not come across any other country where the people love the nature, the flowers and the forests as much as in Lithuania. This being one of the biggest motivating factors for Daigelis to work so hard for their customers, understanding the difficulties of the growers and offering them support and advice regardless of the size of their business. This is particularly important in a country where the growers face a series of complications such as the variable weather ranging from freezing winters to scorching, or heavily wet, summers.
During the years of the company’s activity, they have noticed that floriculture was, and still is, quite neglected in their area, the main national focus being on vegetables and cereals. Furthermore, the majority of floricultural businesses is still in the hands of family businesses, who run small to medium sized growing operations, reinforcing the fact that the access to knowledge and experience is of crucial importance for this sector to develop further.
The main event during this visit was the Lithuanian Ornamental Growers’ Meeting (LOGM) which took place in Kaunas, on the 20th of June 2018, and was also organized by Daigelis. Almost all of the Daigelis’ international partner companies have participated at the meeting including: Schneider youngplants (The Netherlands), Selecta One (Germany), Koppe B.V. (The Netherlands), DHMI – Lannes (France, Spain), Gediflora (Belgium).
From the perspective of the Lithuanian agricultural world this event was quite large, with more than 200 participants. This was the second edition of the LOGM, the first meeting was organized 4 years ago, also by Daigelis. Before that no other such event took place in Lithuania. With this initiative Daigelis managed to bring together growers from all over the country as well as from neighboring Latvia. For the gathered audience, Schneider youngplants presented its novelties for the upcoming season and shared growing tips about biennials, gaining feedback from the local growers about assortment and schedule demands, listening to their needs and trying to find solutions which would help them to improve and grow. One of the key points of the meeting concerned how to grow sellable plants without growth regulators, since the usage of PGRs is not allowed in Lithuania. From this point of view Lithuania is one step ahead compared to the Netherlands, and could give us all a good example on how to increase sustainability through the decreased use of chemicals.
The main motive to organize this growers’ meeting, according to Daigelis, was that they have identified the issue that finding experts in the floricultural sector in Lithuania is quite difficult. Due to this they wanted to offer the growers the possibility to access knowledge and information regarding growing and treatment technologies, as well as to introduce them to the latest trends in the floricultural sector. This meeting also gave the chance for growers to exchange views and experience among themselves.
Although the country has deep agriculture traditions with established agricultural universities, the governmental indifference, inappropriate legislation, lack of control and neglect of the regulations (illegal propagation, illegal activity of sellers, illegal flow of plants from other countries without any documents where taxes are not paid) creates unfair and distorted competition on the Lithuanian market. To improve this, the country would need a well-planned collaboration where everyone, including international suppliers and breeders must make an effort. Daigelis, in cooperation with Schneider youngplants believes that the mission of the companies is not only to sell a product but also to give the possibility to others to learn, and gain practical experience in the sector. This injection of knowledge would in turn equip the country with professionals who could bring positive change into these, sometime ambiguous, market circumstances of the Baltic region.
For more information:
Daigelis
Tel: +370 699 52345
Schneider youngplants
Tel : +31 180 617000
www.schneiderbv.nl