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Key Findings

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Key Findings

  • Training does make a significant difference to the ecological soundness of harvesting practice
  • Training also increases the professionalism of picking teams more broadly, which benefits their economic efficiency
  • There needs to be increased communication between packsheds and suppliers over issues such as availability of species, meaning and relevance of market criteria and consistent usage of species names
  • Efforts to reduce rejects at the packshed will benefit both the environment and stakeholders’ finances
  • Further work is required to institutionalise sustainable harvesting within, and beyond, the Agulhas Plain
Left: A Flower Valley picker shows good technique with a 45 degree cut. Right: A bundle of stems, which show sound application of the 45 degree rule.
Left: A Flower Valley picker shows good technique with a 45 degree cut.
Right: A bundle of stems, which show sound application of the 45 degree rule.
Evidence of past poor practice on one of the sites. Pickers have acted against the recommendations
of sustainable harvesting training and left off-cuts from cleaning in a single location.
This means that any seeds are concentrated in one place, whilst the redundant foliage turns into mulch
which suppresses growth in that spot. Three such areas were noticed during the exercise.
Left: Andrae Marais makes a point at the plenary session.
Right: Roger Bailey closes the plenary with an overview of the Sustainable Harvesting Database.