Colombian growers invest in automation

It becomes harder for Colombian growers to find and keep workers as increasingly more jobs arise in the city. Moreover, the labour costs are increasing. So, in order to deal with this development, more and more growers are starting to automate parts of their production or post harvest processes. Bicco Farms is such a company. They are automating parts of their post harvest process and started to use a buncher machine this year. This machine is supplied by the Dutch manufacturer Havatec and will double the productivity of their labor. This is explained by Mark Fikkers of Havatec.

Mark Fikkers of Havatec and Daniel Hoyos of Bicco Farms at the Proflora 2015 in Bogota, Colombia.

Less and expensive labor
Colombia is strengthening its financial position. "The Colombian economy is getting better and better. Therefore increasingly well paid jobs are arising in the city which attract a lot of people from the 'country side'", explains Fikkers. As a consequence less employees will be available to the Colombian growers. For this reason, increasingly more growers are looking for techniques that will improve the productivity of employees. Bicco Farms also decided to look for ways to do this and installed a bunching machine which will double the productivity of its post harvest employees.

Bicco Farms
Bicco Farms, located in the fertile savannah on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia, grows alstroemerias, statices, solidagos and limoniums blue. The flowers were bunched manually, but in March 2016, the quality buncher 2.0 Colombia edition of Havatec was installed. "As they also have to deal with a decrease in availability of employees, and especially skilled employees, and an increase in labor costs, they had to find a tailored solution that will not just help them instantly but which also benefits them in the future," says Fikkers.

The quality buncher 2.0 Colombia edition at Bicco Farms.

Customized orders
Havatec supplied Bicco Farms with their quality buncher 2.0 Colombia edition. According to Fikkers, this buncher is called the Colombia edition as it needs to fit in the 'flexible' Colombian post harvest process. "The regular quality buncher 2.0 is developed for mass bunching, so many of the same flowers are being bunched in the same quantities. In Colombia, however, they have a lot of customized orders, which means that they have to deal with different amount of stems per bunch. Moreover, many Colombian farmers often grow several flower varieties. All in all, this 'flexible' Colombian post harvest process resulted in a more flexible and easy to customize bunching machine: the quality buncher 2.0 Colombia edition," he concludes.

For more information
Havatec
Mark Fikkers
Email: mark.fikkers@havatec.nl
Daniel Hoyos
Email: daniel.hoyos@havatec.com
www.havatec.nl