Planning and Methodology

The event was planned by Roger Bailey, David Bek, Sean Privett, Shaun Page and Gerhard van Deventer. Four meetings were held in order to identify the specific objectives of the exercise, scope out the methodology and plan the logistics. Ultimately, practical considerations took precedence in many areas of the planning process. Such practical matters included: access to pickers – commercial demands made it difficult to recruit pickers; availability of suitable species; distances that pickers and observers would need to travel; the availability of suitably qualified data collectors and translation requirements.

Selection of Pickers

Eight pickers were recruited, four from Flower Valley Farm and four from a ‘Control Group’.  Each team was led by their supervisor. The sample included people from different backgrounds and experiences: Xhosa speakers, Afrikaans speakers, those who have undergone sustainable harvesting training and those that have not, people with lengthy experience of working in the veld and others with less. The Flower Valley Team was selected as they should represent best-practice in the realm of sustainable harvesting due to the leading role played by Flower Valley during the development and implementation of the sustainable harvesting programme. The Control Group consisted of pickers who, whilst experienced in veld picking, are not part of a sustainable harvesting supply chain. Would there be noticeable differences in the practices of the two teams given their differing backgrounds in relation to the sustainable harvesting imperative?

Methodology

1. The two teams picked on unfamiliar lands. Thus, Flower Valley picked on the neighbouring Witkrans Farm, whilst the Control Group picked on Flower Valley Farm. The purpose of this was to see how teams would approach a new area and apply sustainable harvesting principles when taken out of their ‘comfort zone’ into unfamiliar terrain. Each team was asked to complete an order within a 2 hour period. The orders comprised a range of species from the different reproductive guilds (i.e seeders, obligate sprouters) in order to see whether they would apply appropriate interpretations of the ‘sustainable harvesting code of practice’ (SHCoP). The species selected intentionally included one that was marginal for harvesting in that location – in this case, protea compacta that was not yet ready for harvesting. In this way the supervisor and picker responses were tested. Other possibilities for marginal harvesting opportunities could have included: very young veld, very old veld, or high presence of alien species. As it transpired other examples of marginal harvesting conditions occurred during the exercise
2. The two teams gathered at Flower Valley first thing in the morning in order to be given their order and maps of the picking terrain. The supervisors conferred with Roger Bailey for advice on the location of species before going off to begin picking
3. During the picking, observers were asked to discretely collect information that would be recorded onto a data sheet for each picker – relating to cutting technique, stem lengths, number of blooms being removed and other aspects identified by the Code of Practice. Additional data was collected via camera and video
4. The harvested material was taken to the Flower Valley shed and unloaded for inspection. Harvested bundles were assessed to see the extent to which they conformed to sustainable harvesting criteria and the demands of the market. Stanford-based packshed Fynsa provided an outline of the typical market criteria for the species harvested for this exercise
5. Three of the pickers were interviewed on a one to one basis in order to find out more about the sources of their knowledge and to identify the factors that influence the way that they pick on a daily basis (i.e. influence of supervisor, deadlines, piece rates etc.