CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY The BOK Partnership replaces complete bagging line Scale expansion can take different forms. Potato growers can expand the acreage, but can also expand their activities. The BOK Partnership in Creil is a good example. The collaborating neighbours bag a lot of seed for growers in the region. This means that investments must be made. They recently even replaced the complete bagging line. I t is the second half of May and it is still bone dry throughout the country. Rain reels are never out of action. Father Henk and son Bert Keen and neighbour Arie ten Brinke, all partners in the BOK Partnership, also have the irrigation system at the ready. An extra busy time awaits the collaborating partners. Not only because of the extra work outside. There is also plenty to do inside. May is usually a month with a lot of paper-work. They struggle through heaps of documents and draw up the final accounts for the work that was done during the winter, Keen tells us. An important task during that period is the bagging and preparing for shipping of seed potatoes for Agrico in Emmeloord. This involves both seed they have grown themselves and that was grown by many farmers in the area. Many growers still grade their seed themselves, but they increasingly leave the bagging to specialised companies. The reason is the urgency of the trading companies in wanting to have the potatoes as soon as possible. ‘If an order comes in today, they like to have it ready for shipping that same day. This requires a big investment in packaging machines, which can never be made profitable for individual seed potato growers,’ Keen explains. Packaging changed In order to process all that seed quickly and professionally, the partnership has an ultra modern weighing and packaging line available. ‘The packaging of potatoes has changed a lot recently. In the early days, we only had 50 kg bags. What you now also see are 25, 10 and 5 kg bags, and the big bags that can hold up to 1,250 kg of seed. This not only requires faster machines but also machines that are much more accurate. That is why Keen and Ten Brinke decided to overhaul the complete bagging line last year. A very proud Keen: ‘The last weighing and bagging machines were more than twenty years old. That system lacked the capacity to deal with the bigger quantities of potatoes that need to be packaged. Our own acreage has increased to 70 hectares in the past period, which means that we bag between 2,500 and 3,000 kg of seed ourselves. You can add the same amount of potatoes from third parties. Weighers that have an accuracy tolerance of within 20 grams The first in the row of new machinery is a fully-computerised weigher. It is the Manter 10.000. This weigher is equipped with ten scales to make weighing as accurate as possible. The potaPotato World 2011 • number 3 25 Pagina 24

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