PW-ACTUA More room to manoeuvre in new storehouse The building committee required the roof to be in alignment with the roofs of all other buildings on the farm. At the beginning of February, Agrinbo-Geerkens, the Belgian agricultural building company, organised an open day in the new potato and onion storage at the farm of Daan Dees, a crop farmer in Den Bommel. The building is particularly striking because it has three roofs and a spacious loading and unloading area. The Agrinbo-Geerkens storehouses are well-known on Goeree-Overflakkee. These structures, with their characteristic, heavy, concrete walls, are now found everywhere on the South Holland peninsula. Crop farmer Daan Dees told us that he knows of stores that are already fifteen years old and which still look as if they were built last year. This is why he decided to have one built himself by the Belgian builders. However, not a single storehouse built by this company is the same and that is what they wanted to emphasise on the open day at Dees’ farm. Crop farmer Daan Dees from Den Bommel also needed plenty of time to have his new store designed to his satisfaction. Within the farm boundaries, near the paved farm yard, he had a nice, free rectangular plot to build this big new store. This was the place where Dees wanted his storehouse, with 4 compartments, and a storage capacity of 750 tons each. ‘I prefer four smaller compartments to one big one. That gives more flexibility. Given the lifting capacity of the contractor, I can fill a space like that within one day. In addition, I transport the potatoes at different times over the whole storage season. And my aim is to sell the entire contents of each compartment and empty it in one go.’ Dees closes off the compartments with big bales of straw. ‘That is much easier than planking and it is cheaper than doors.’ Buildings committee wants three-part division Another of Dees’ wishes was that he could carry out loading and unloading inside the store. That was the first design. Frank Hoekxs of Agrinbo-Geerkens shows the drawing: a simple rectangular store, 75x25 m., elongated sloping roof, four compartments next to each other and divided over the length of the building with a covered loading and unloading space in front of the compartments. However, after discussions with the municipality’s building committee, this drawing was thrown into the wastepaper basket, because the committee required the roof to be in alignment with the roofs of all other buildings on the farm. So, Agrinbo-Geerkens went back to the drawing board for a new design: three compartments with a sloping roof for each of them. The loading and unloading space was placed between two adjoining compartments. It made construction somewhat more expensive; according to Hoekxs, the additional costs amounted to 50,000 euros. In total, the storehouse would cost approximately 850,000 euros. All things considered, Dees is happy with the threepart division. ‘The spacious loading and unloading area in the middle gives scope for manoeuvring, especially when loading and unloading take place simultaneously. The compartments are closed off with big bales of straw. ‘That is much easier than planking and it is cheaper than doors. I have had the bales pressed to exactly the right size so that I can put them between the partitions with the fork lift truck.’ The crop farmer stores seed onions and chip potatoes in his new storehouse. His potatoes are all of the Agria variety and he always grows them as a free variety. ● ‘I prefer four smaller compartments to one big one. That gives more flexibility’, is Daan Dees’ experience. Potato World 2011 • number 2 11 Pagina 10
Pagina 12Voor publicaties, online spaarprogramma en lesboeken zie het Online Touch online publisher CMS systeem. Met de mogelijkheid voor een online winkel in uw uitgaven.
Potatoworld 2011/2 Lees publicatie 20Home