Great Giant Foods (GGF) through the Department of Farm Equipment (FE) functions to process the planting land needed by plantations. Land cultivation is the process of changing the nature of the soil by using agricultural tools in such a way, so that planting land is obtained in accordance with the needs for plant growth.

Every year FE can provide quality land ready for planting for the needs of pineapple, banana, cassava plants, and several other needs such as Research & Development (R&D) planting area which reaches 7,000 hectares. “Land preparation activities are carried out according to the plantation budget for land that must be prepared in a year,” said Farm Equipment Manager Suparno.

The results of the processing of planting land with quality standards have been jointly determined by the plantation. This concerns the prerequisites needed by plants so that FE has quality standards as a reference. The land processing activities carried out are chopping, plowing, finishing harrow and ridger. There is much more to be done to adjust the final tillage to a standard.

“Quality is a fixed price for operations in FE, because operators are working and if the quality is not appropriate then they do not get a premium. This pattern has been carried out for years and the results can meet the quality standards determined by the plantation. The quality of the work is assessed by the Plantation Quality Control (QC), not the FE Department,” said Suparno.

Suparno continued, that the obstacle that is usually felt in FE is during the rainy season, many land management schedules cannot be followed and have the potential to be postponed so that they are not in accordance with the schedule. Usually, in such a situation, you have to sacrifice quality, of course, with plantation approval, because the priority for planting is number one there.

This year, FE has prepared 25 tractors for land cultivation in the three Plantation Groups, and has reserved bulldozer units with unit operating costs that are quite expensive. “I hope that as much as possible, land processing activities are completed with tractors, because bulldozers have quite high operational costs, especially the cost of fuel and spare parts for equipment is difficult,” concluded Suparmo.