Agriculture has been an important part of the survival and evolution of humankind since the very beginning of time. Today, agriculture is the source of our food and therefore, an economic contributor to world trade that needs a special attention from governments and the working population and that is the constant focus of scientists and experts who try to maximize the efficiency and rapidness with which the crops are fertilized and harvested. In addition, the farms specialized in providing the fruits, vegetables and plants that the whole world makes use of each day are employing fertilizers, machines and even computers in order to keep up with the huge demand, especially now that the ecology and demography specialists announce that the farms and arable lands will soon not be enough to feed the population of the globe.
Only 10 years ago it was rare that a fruit and vegetable farm would implement computerized management systems to assist with the day to day operations, planning and monitoring of their farm. Today, many farms are adopting business management systems to control farm planning, crop planning, farm yield, farm inventory, and of recent importance, traceability management. Farm software solutions provide computer programs that can be installed on a server which will share the software with all other computers on the network, or even over the internet. Advanced modern farm management and Packhouse management systems are built using we technologies which means no software needs to be installed on client computers (only the server), and access to the farm and Packhouse software is available to devices such as smart phones, tablets, and of course personal computers and laptops.
Contemporary farm software and farm ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions now offer comprehensive farm management systems which provide both small and large scale farms with extensive monitoring and planning systems that function across the entire farm, or multiple farms for corporate farming.
Implementation of farm software solutions is now carried out by specialized farm software solution consultants that have many years of experience in the farms business requirements and methods to solve challenges faced by modern farming companies. Implementation of farm software generally takes from two weeks to two months depending on the scale of the solution implemented and the business processes use on the farm. Common business sections managed using farm software (for fruit and vegetable farms) include:
Spray management for farms
Irrigation management for farms
Labor and employee timesheet management for farming
Farm wide crop planning
Farm traceability (eg: BRC, HACCP, GlobalGAP, ISO etc)
Farm cost management
Farm budgeting
Advanced Farm Software can also provide management of post harvest intervals (PHI). When farms implement farm software that includes PHI management, the farm software automatically calculates post harvest intervals and stops the farm manager from accidentally breaching the required post harvest interval.
Some professional farm software vendors provide farm software that uses a “farm diary” style interface to allow farm managers a visual impression of farm tasks that are being performed on a selected date, and area of land. These professional grade farm software solutions (for example www.FarmSoft.com ) provide comprehensive farm software solutions including training and support services.
Farm software is most commonly implemented to improve farm profit, farm traceability, employee accountability, and quality and quantity of yield.
For more resources about fruit packing, please review these links.
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