Finka deploys principles of Plant Empowerment for their cultivation process

  • August 31, 2022
    • Plant Empowerment
    • Success Story

Watch this video and see how Finka is transforming into a data-driven organization.

Robert van der Geest, operations manager of the Mexican vegetable company Finka (65 hectares), is one of the initiators who will focus more on the proper use of data within the company. They choose to use the Plant Empowerment concept for their cultivation process and deploy MyLetsGrow for analysis and monitoring.

Plant Empowerment helps us as a company make better decisions, optimize growing conditions, increase production and improve quality. All with the goal of improving the company's bottom line.

Robert van der Geest, operational manager Finka

"We are learning to focus much more on data about the crop itself. We use the available energy to optimize crop conditions. Always looking for the balance of different elements, including converting energy or light into photosynthesis, maintaining relative humidity or optimizing moisture. How do we get speed into the crop while maintaining a more stable temperature and radiation rate."

Once you learn the Plant Empowerment concept by applying it, you already have the values you are looking for and discover which ones work to achieve different balances.

Or Weiss, grower at Finka and user of LetsGrow.com

I use MyLetsGrow a lot to analyze. This is because it gives me all the tools to analyze: to compare the day before with what is now. In MyLetsGrow I can also set the target values I am looking for and I see very quickly if I am staying within these target values or not. I also analyze why it happened".

Using MyLetsGrow at Finka

Within Finka, they use MyLetsGrow to connect multiple locations in terms of data. We also train growers to do crop registration; and we help train growers in applying the concept of Plant Empowerment.

We also analyzed all the crop and climate data from the past few years to find out what Finka could improve in their growing process. In addition, we use these analyses to determine the optimal growing strategies for the specific crops in the specific greenhouses. We have created dashboards where the growers and the crop director monitor and track how the crop is doing according to these targets.

For the management of the company, it is now more transparent what is happening in all their greenhouses and why.