Programme: Recovery and Resilience Plan

The project proposal envisages the implementation of a system for automated washing, drying, weighing and sorting of watermelons, melons and cabbage, as well as short buffer storage. For this purpose, an automated line for washing, drying, weighing and sorting the produce is planned. Warehouse material handling equipment for working with the line, as well as for transport-warehousing activity for storage and dispatch of the production, is also planned. Every year, the farm suffers large losses of  vegetable stock due to the inability to harvest , process and bring it into an acceptable commercial form. Production is muddy in rainy periods or dusty in dry periods. Washing takes a lot of resources (water, manpower, fuel) and time. The inability to easily and quickly sort into different  weight and size classes is also a barrier between us and our customers. Another problem is the impossibility of realization in bad weather conditions, due to the lack of a buffer volumes of vegetable production. With the implementation of this system, the produce will come directly from the field in special plastic bins, it will be unloaded by a forklift that will feed the line. Passing through the line, the produce will come out clean, dry and automatically sorted into separate weight classes. The entire process is monitored by an electronic system, which provides important statistical information that will be used to optimize and adapt agrotechnical actions to meet the market requirements. In addition, the ready-to-sell production will be able to be stored in the farm's warehouse, which will allow deliveries to customers not to be interrupted in bad weather conditions.