"Malaysia: "Automation enables us to overcome labor issues"

Unskilled foreign workers who do not speak the language and often return to their home country within five years. This is one of the main challenges Malaysian growers are dealing with. Malaysian potted plant grower YG Park also had to deal with these challenges and therefore, as one of the first plant nurseries in the Cameron Highlands, decided to automate most of their labor-intensive work. Twelve years ago, they purchased their first fertigation machine and gradually automated all the desired processes over the years. A lot of their machines come from Italian company Urbinati, and they are now even the local sales and service representative of this company in the Cameron Highlands.

YG Park grows several potted plant varieties in their 5 acre greenhouse in the Cameron Highlands. Their main crop is the potted rose of Danish rose breeder Roses Forever. They supply these plants to the local market and export to other countries in Asia.

Alessandro Mazzacano of Urbinati together with Wong Lee Chiat of YG Park at the Horti Asia in Bangkok last week.

As a result of the labor issues they encountered, YG Park decided to start automating labor-intensive work in their nursery twelve years ago. "Malaysian workers are quite expensive, so we, like many other growers here in the region, employed foreign workers from countries like Bangladesh or Nepal. Most of these workers, however, were illiterate, could not speak or understand the Malaysian language and often returned to their home country within five years to return a couple of months later. All in all, it took us a lot of time and effort to educate our new and existing workers, to find new workers and to keep everyone busy once the workers returned from their home country visit."

Seeding Unit.

In order to overcome these issues, YG Park started to automate the most labor-intensive work: the irrigation and fertilization process. They decided to purchase a fertigation system as it would save a lot of labor work on a daily basis. "For one acre of land, five workers would need more than half a day to irrigate the land. Now, we only have one worker that monitors the machine, that does not only irrigate but also fertilizes the crop. On top of that, no human mistakes are being made anymore, which enables us to reach a higher crop quality."

Potting machine and big bale vertical machine.

And a higher quality offered YG Park the opportunity to enter the Asian market. "The Malaysian market for potted plants is not so competitive. The growers know what other growers cultivate and not often decide to grow a similar crop", says Chiat. However, when supplying to the Asian market, it is a different story. "We have to compete with several growers and by offering a good quality product, we can diversify ourselves from the competition."

The potted roses of Roses Forever.

After installing the fertigation system, they decided to continue with automating their greenhouse. "We have quite an old greenhouse and due to the hilly landscape of the Cameron Highlands, we could not automate the greenhouse all at once. So, we did it gradually." Currently, they have automated all the desired processes. "We now, for example, have a seeding unit, trimming machine, potting machine, tray filling machine, traywashing machine, big bale vertical Machine and transplanter machine."

Many of their machines have been imported from Italian company Urbinati. Over the years, YG Park has gathered a lot of knowledge about automation and the Urbinati machines. So much so, that they are now also the local sales and service representative of this company in the Cameron Highlands. According to Wong Lee Chiat of YG Park, automation is relatively new for many growers in the Cameron region, so there is a lot to gain.

For more information
YG Park (Urbinati distributor Malaysia)
ygpark999@gmail.com