Managing the lack of labour for mushroom picking

Managing the lack of labour for mushroom picking

Willing volunteers are rarely drawn to the prospect of incredibly boring job in secluded, cold growth rooms, especially in wealthier and more developed nations where a labour shortage of this kind is rarely addressed by menial wage hikes. Simply put, people detest jobs like this one.

Given that Polish company Agro-Projects has spent years constructing and outfitting farms throughout the globe, it is evident that the high expense of mushroom picking in Europe is the reason why mushroom production in Central and Eastern Europe is expanding more quickly. In general, areas with lower salaries and more labour availability are more suited for mushroom farming economically, but harvesting is still the biggest issue—and it’s getting worse.

In Europe, about 20,000 individuals gather mushrooms. Depending on the nation and kind of produce, they can make between €0.1 and €0.5 per kilogramme. Apart from paying wages, most farms also have to pay for the provision of suitable accommodation and working conditions for pickers, sometimes even constructing whole hostels because many pickers are foreign nationals.

For these reasons, picker shortages have been a problem for mushroom farms for many years. Since the 1990s, mechanised harvesting has been used with success; however, because of the high damage ratio of mushrooms, the results of this method are only appropriate for the processing business. About 80 percent of consumption comes from the fresh market, which necessitates manual harvesting.

There are two components to the requirements for automated mushroom picking. The first is choosing the right mushrooms, which takes more finesse than just choosing the biggest ones available. The second involves actually reaching out and removing the mushroom from the compost, taking care not to harm it too much.

Both tasks are difficult, but the first has been completed successfully with the aid of new technology and artificial intelligence, while the creation of an artificial “hand” is still an ongoing project. Various types of suction cups have been the subject of numerous failed attempts; at the moment, the most promising innovations mimic human fingers and movements. Industrial samples are currently being produced, but compared to the necessary investment (capex), the process’s quality, cost, and picking speed are insufficient.

Within the next ten to twenty years, there is little expectation that fully automated mushroom farms will be realised. Because mushroom growing requires specialised conditions, hybrid solutions—human and robot—seem to be the most practical.

What could quicken the process of gathering mushrooms?

Perhaps more work is going into creating tools that let human pickers work more efficiently, given the obstacles facing robotic options. For instance, a lot of farmers are prepared to spend money on semi-automatic picking trolleys, or lorries, which make gathering mushrooms simpler and quicker. Over the past two to three years, Agro-Projects has experienced a considerable increase in the number of inquiries about the delivery of such equipment.

It is clear that there is a global trend towards increasing picking efficiency. Technology suppliers and mushroom producers are choosing to assign simpler tasks to machines or robots and leave the more difficult tasks, which are still beyond the capabilities of robots, to pickers. Pickers have to choose which mushrooms to remove from the expanding shelf, whether they use AI assistance or not. But machines can easily do tasks like clipping a stem, putting it on a tray, shifting the trays, and even sorting and calibrating mushrooms.

When you take away someone’s need to chop the mushroom stem, you free up the hand that was previously holding the knife, giving them the chance to pick with both hands. Tilting the growth bed in the direction of the picker will facilitate the task; “tilting shelves” of this kind are already in the works.

The goal of such innovations is to boost productivity while removing the necessity for bending over thousands of times a day and placing a person in a well-lit, comfortable area. Instead of having a human go along the shelf, engineers are developing a shelf that moves to the person in order to accomplish this.

Nevertheless, the choice to construct such a mushroom farm must consider the length of time and the significant cost needed for such cutting-edge equipment. Even if there will be less manpower used in the production process, the cost of production will likely increase as a result of those investments.

These days, automated carts are the most common investment in picking

While this is going on, a large number of newly constructed and established farms, including many of Agro-Projects’ clients, are handling the more routine duties to enhance the harvesting process by putting in place quite easy solutions that have the most impact at a lower cost.

Since mushroom shelf racks are lengthy, multi-level structures where mushrooms grow, a trolley that is suspended from the rack on wheels is typically used. The trolley’s platform can travel along the shelving as well as between levels. When using a regular trolley, going up and down the levels involved pulling the rack with a hand and physically reinstalling the trolley’s ‘balcony’.

To make the procedure more efficient and fun, modern farms aim to spare their employees from having to do such effort. The process can be made considerably easier by equipping the picking lorry with battery-powered drives thanks to modern, reasonably priced technologies. Furthermore, some have the ability to precisely place the trolley along the rack and vertically, which reduces tilting and facilitates quicker access to the mushrooms. This type of harvesting vehicle can readily adjust to accommodate pickers with varying heights. Furthermore, new trolleys have the ability to move gently and continuously horizontally along the shelves, freeing up the pickers to focus on their work.

Recall that a mushroom can gain up to 40% in weight during the course of a workday; each kilogramme can fetch a higher price when sold. For this reason, rather than pulling mushrooms in the morning, you should let them to grow. Pickers can visit the same section of the mushroom shelf four to five times a day, separated by several hours, by using semi-automated picking trolleys to streamline the movement and enable them to harvest freshly produced mushrooms. An additional advantage is that the mushroom picker may harvest identical-sized mushrooms in a single pass, which reduces the need for sorting, containers, and focus.

Harvesting has emerged as the single greatest cost associated with mushroom cultivation; in certain nations, like the Netherlands, it often surpasses even compost, which was the biggest expense historically. The most common investment made by mushroom producers at the moment is semi-automated picking trolleys, which offer the highest performance return. They work on practically any mushroom farm that currently exists, which is a huge advantage. Customers report 15–30% faster picking speeds with our trolleys than with standard ones.