One of only two automatic vegetable planters in the country is now planting seedlings into the soil around the Waimea Plains for Conning’s Market Garden.
The Ferrari transplanter will replace up to four people on the old planter which was coming to the end of its life.
Director Ben Conning says the machine will lower costs and help the business remain competitive in an industry where many growers are struggling to make money.
“You need to be more cost efficient than your competitors, so if you can lower your costs, the more likely you are to survive. Especially at the moment when costs are your biggest enemy and wages are your biggest costs.”
He says the family business, which grows 160ha of vegetables around the plains, made the decision to buy an automatic planter during the Covid-19 pandemic when it was “next to impossible” to find people to work on the old planter.
“It was a no-brainer to find a machine to replace three to four people.”
That led to the importation of the Ferrari transplanter from Italy and some of the Ferrari team have been in New Zealand to teach them how to use the machine.
It is now up and running, though Ben says it will take time to fine-tune the process, particularly getting the seedlings grown correctly for the machine to plant.
One of the advantages of being market gardeners with a vegetable plant nursery is they can play around with the seedling process to get it right, he says.
Now, instead of maybe two to three people on the old machine to plant brassicas, or up to four to plant lettuces, the new machine needs just a driver and one person following to check the planting and fill in any gaps.
“If you can save yourself two to three people a year, it pays itself off over a five-to-seven-year period.
“For us, organising a crew for the old planter, including the driver, means you have up to six people showing up on time and keen to work. There’s a lot of energy tied up with organising staff. This machine can go faster as well.”
Ben says there are not many growers around the country making money right now due to increasing costs at a time sales have dropped.
He attributes less sales to good weather across the country leading to an oversupply of vegetables, combined with the cost of living impacting on customers spending.
Part of the cost of the planter will be a low-bed trailer to haul it between different blocks of land.
The family grow vegetables on 12 blocks of land around the plains that are either owned or leased and Ben says at a speed of about 12 kilometres per hour, it will be more time efficient to put it on a trailer than drive it on along the road.
Statistics NZ reports that fruit and vegetable prices were down 9.3 per cent in the 12 months to February 2024.
“Cheaper prices for fresh produce such as tomatoes, broccoli, and lettuce drove the decrease in fruit and vegetable prices,” consumer prices manager Will Bell said.
Cheaper prices for apples and kumara were also a factor.
