Sustainable baby leaf production in Spain
Company : Florette Group and McDonald's
The Florette Group is part of Agrial, an Agricultural Co-Operative. The business prepares ready-to-use salads and vegetables, which are sold to various clients including McDonald's restaurants. Florette has 10 sites throughout Europe and produces 1 million bags of finished product per day. In Spain, 75% of Florette’s raw material requirement is sourced from their farming subsidiary Pentaflor Hortícola, which farms around 1,333 hectares of land across Spain, and in 2008, produced 26,000 tonnes of raw material. The crops grown include Iceberg, Scaroles, Baby Leaves, Romaine, Batavia, Lollo, Spinach, Chard and Radicchio.
Pentaflor Hortícola currently employs 195 people, and the company has a policy to ensure that 2% of the workforce places are reserved for handicapped staff. This policy
makes the business more representative of the community and
promotes a good public image as a fair and inclusive business/employer. Employing staff to undertake agricultural work is an issue for all employers alike. National workers are occasionally unwilling to undertake this type of work, resulting in employers looking further afield to recruit staff (over 80% of the workforce is made up of migrant workers). The company has a policy to look after the welfare of all their employees: all permanent workers are provided with a full-time fixed contract, have full legal labour rights, receive tax documentation and advice from an approved consultant, have
all work permits processed, and are provided with accommodation. They also benefit from the 24-hour availability of support staff to help with any issues, weekend day trips, all company documentation being provided in the workers own languages and holidays home being arranged by the company. This highly structured staff care programme has benefitted the company by almost eliminating staff turnover. This avoids problems such as the need to retrain replacement staff on systems and procedures, and the time-intensive recruitment process. It is a testament to the company, that the staff are happy with the employment conditions.
In addition, the business has three main goals associated
with the local community; social development, cultural development and enterprise development. To help achieve these goals, the company, along with five other local businesses, are supporters of the Milagro XXI Foundation. They sponsor several activities including Spanish lessons for migrant workers, a literature contest, economic aid to small businesses within Milagro, prizes for local primary school children etc.
The farm maintains very open and close communication lines with the processing plant on raw material quality. Issues surrounding low quality raw materials at the processing plant can be quickly fed back to the farm, and corrective actions put directly in place, or future operations altered to avoid the
occurrence of a similar nature. One example of an improvement made as a result of this relationship is that by reducing soil nitrogen levels and the quantity of irrigation water during the week prior to harvest, raw material quality at
processing is improved and input costs for the farm are reduced (also benefitting the natural environment).
Soil testing for phosphate, potash, magnesium and acidity (pH) are undertaken when new fields are introduced into the farming system, ensuring that the farm’s fertiliser applications
are based on good practice and sound data. Morover, nitrogen application is systematicaly based on soil testing and and leaf sample, leading to a 30% reduction in the use of nitrogen fertilisers. The method used by the farm is fertigation - ie the application of dissolved nutrients (fertilisers) through an irrigation system. That way, the plants receive measured amounts of liquid fertiliser as they need, and nutrient levels are decreased as the crop approaches harvest. The farm’s policy is to reduce soil nitrogen levels to 50 kg/hectare in the week prior to harvest, benefitting raw material quality, reducing fertiliser costs and diminishing soil nitrogen reserves which limits the risk of leaching. Irrigation scheduling is also used on the farm, to calculate the precise volume of water needed by a crop and specific timings of application. This approach maximises irrigation efficiencies, enabling both water and energy to be saved.
In addition, the farm uses integrated pest management (IPM)
to monitor for pests and diseases, and target pests at the right time, with the best product. One of the best ways to monitor pest occurrence is through pheromone traps - using chemically synthesised pheromones designed to trap a targeted moth species. The traps are checked twice per week by the technicians, and only if determined threshold levels are exceeded is a spray programme implemented, as per the degree and stage identified.
Ultimately, crop growth, disease and pest levels are all widely influenced by climatic conditions. To enable improved control over the crops’ growing environment, the farm grows around 90% of their produce in greenhouses. These are fitted with automatic sensors to maintain pre-determined climatic conditions, and local weather conditions are monitored via the use of weather stations on site. The remaining 10% of the crops are grown under mesh. This reduces the incidence of pest infestations as they cannot reach the plant, as well as evapotranspiration losses due to the micro climate under the mesh. This policy has enabled the farm to reduce irrigation quantities by 20%. The farm has also found that reducing the seed rates and therefore plant density at specific times of the year, helps reduce fungal disease outbreaks. Along with the use of pheromone traps this policy has reduced pesticide use by an overall 20%.
