Major vegetable producer is extracting maximum value out of its equipment
Growing vegetables 363 days a year on multiple farms across four states is a complex business and often a race with time, for Barden Farms.
A cauliflower that is perfect in size today could be rejected tomorrow, lettuce can bolt to flower in a matter of days, and machine downtime can leave dozens of staff at a standstill.
National Farming Manager, Nathan Clackson, says it means timing is not just important, it’s the difference between success and failure.
“People may not realise that cauliflower move on a full moon,” Clackson said.
“It sounds like I’m full of it but when there’s a big full moon and a clear sky, especially around springtime, the cauliflower can go crazy and you’ve got to get into it. We had a flush of cauliflower recently and picked four weeks of stock in seven days.
“We’re working big hours and if the machines don’t work, we don’t work, and the produce gets out of size. The (buyer) specifications are that cauliflowers have to be 130-160ml.
“That could be a day’s growth so if you miss it, it’s pig food.”
This is just one of the vegetables grown, packed, marketed and distributed by the family-owned business established by John Drummond in 1986. Barden Farms provides supermarkets across Australia with brassicas, Asian vegetables, lettuce, herbs, bunched vegetables and pumpkins.
At the company’s 100ha farm in South East Queensland’s Lockyer Valley, Clackson said the team may plant 26 times a season across 20 different varieties of crops, to ensure produce is available daily on supermarket shelves.
“If you’re a broadacre farmer, you plant once a season and that’s it,” he said.
“On this farm we can have 100 to 150 plantings in a season, and we’ve got eight farms doing the same thing in different locations, so it’s quite complicated.”
About eight years ago, Barden Farms began introducing John Deere equipment. Clackson’s local John Deere dealership is RDO Equipment in Gatton, and the Barden Farms team have formed a strong relationship with sales representative Ben Anderson.
“I think our farming performance has improved through the John Deere dealership helping to educate our staff, so that we understand what’s under the bonnet of the tractors and how to get the most out of them,” Clackson said.
Tools in John Deere Operations Center, such as idle management, have proved to be a valuable cost saver.
“Ben pulled me aside and said, ‘You know you’re burning A$80/hour in depreciation plus the cost of diesel while that tractor is just sitting there idling?’ So that was a lesson to monitor machine hours,” said Clackson.
“Now I get a report every Monday that says, for example, a spray tractor spent 80 per cent of its time working, 20 per cent of the time idling or 10 per cent travelling. If we can get over 80 per cent of in-field working time, we’re pretty happy with that.
“Our mechanic logs in to Ops Center to check on upcoming hours for servicing and can find out whether it’s a 600-hour or 900-hour service and what filters or lubricants he needs, ahead of time.”
Anderson said it was satisfying to help Clackson and the team at Barden Farms find ways to become more productive and efficient.
“Nathan came to me and said we were ordering a cabbage harvester and that he needed a tractor with variable transmission that would allow the driver to adjust speed to help the cabbage fly up the harvester,” he said.
“Having the IVT transmission in the 6M 130 was right what he was looking for because they can now adjust their speed on the go and make sure they’re harvesting the best produce as quickly as possible.”
Clackson said it was an exciting time to be in horticulture to witness the pace of technological advancement.
“When you look at just how much it’s changed in the last 10 or 15 years, and what you can do with it, and getting help from technicians over the phone, it’s been brilliant,” Clackson said.
“You’ve got guidance tracks, variable rate spreading, and eventually self-driving sprayers and other gear. Automation is going to be biggest development for us because it’s difficult to find people to do the job. It will also be great for fatigue management.”
