Harvest labour management

January 2016 | Craig Hornblow and Jonathan Brookes, AgFirst | Future Orchards® presentation

This presentation complements the Future Labour harvest notes with visual examples of where labour efficiency can be gained during picking. It looks at harvest as a flow of people, fruit, bins and machinery and asks where bottlenecks or unnecessary movements are increasing cost.

Key management areas include picker training, supervision, bin logistics, ladder work, fruit distribution in the canopy and the use of platforms. The presentation reinforces that consistent crop load and accessible canopy structure are prerequisites for efficient harvest systems.

Growers can use the material to review their own harvest operation block by block, compare output between teams and identify changes that improve productivity without sacrificing fruit handling quality or worker safety.