Determining the cost of selective
mechanical harvesting of green asparagus
This is a quick rough look at the
approximate cost of mechanical harvesting of green asparagus.
The factors that affect the cost to
harvest asparagus by machine include the initial cost of the machine,
how many acres per hour the machine can harvest, the cost of fuel,
machine maintenance, and the labor expenses for operating the machine.
Even the row spacing the asparagus is planted on makes a significant
difference. The further apart the rows are the more acres per hour
the machine will cover at a given speed. Acres Per Hour
Even the smallest harvester will require two men to
operate it, a driver and a sorter. Two men can manually harvest
an acre an hour. The more acres
per hour the machine harvests the lower the cost of labor to operate it.
As an example, if a one row machine is run on a field with 48
inch centers and travels at 1 mph, it will
harvest about 1/2 acre per hour. That's only half of what the two men
could do in the same amount of time. Your labor costs alone for
the machine would be double what you pay for hand harvesting. A four row machine would harvest 2
acres per hour. At that rate the machine is replacing 4 men with
two. Now the labor costs are half as much for machine harvesting
when compared with hand harvesting.
Bring the speed up to 2 mph and the labor cost is cut in
half again. The machine would then be doing the equivalent of 8 men with
two. As is evident the number of acres per hour is a huge factor
in the cost of mechanical harvesting.
Initial Cost of Machine
The cost of the machine is obviously
important, especially since it is not a trivial investment. I'm not a
finance guy, so just to get a rough idea of how the machine price
affects the harvesting costs I will assume the machine is purchased
outright without financing at a cost of $125,000.
I will further assume that the machine will last 5 years.
If you run the machine 8 hours a day, the machine will do 24 acres per
season. $125,000 divided by 24 acres = $5,208 per acre.
Spread that over 5 years and you are spending about $1,000 an acre for the
machine per season which must be included in the harvesting costs. Keeping
the machine 10 years would obviously make a big impact. If you are
getting a yield of 4,000 pounds per acre and you are spending $1,000 per acre to
pay for the machine, that works out to twenty five cents a pound.
Clearly the initial cost of the machine is not a trivial factor.
Hours Per Day
If we increase the number of hours the machine operates we can
reduce that cost. Instead of running the machine 8 hours a day
lets run it 16 hours a day. Now the machine will handle 48 acres per
season. The purchase costs per pound drops to twelve and a half cents
per pound. Run it 24 hours a day and the cost drops to eight and a
half cents a pound. If the machine lasts 10 years your down to a
little over four cents per pound. To get the most value from your machine you
need enough acres to keep it busy. If you only have 20 acres of
asparagus the harvesting costs will be higher than if you have 70 acres.
Labor Costs Per Acre
Lets assume
we are paying the tractor driver $15 dollars an hour and the guy sorting
$10.00 hour. At 24 hours per day for 60 cuttings brings the total
wages to $36,000 dollars per season or about $500 per acre. The purchase
price of $125,000 spread out over 10 years and 72 acres comes to $172
per acre. I don't want to get into all the calculations required
to determine the cost per acre for fuel and maintenance, so I'm going to
throw in another $175 per acre to cover those items. This brings
our total costs per acre to about $850 per acre.
The yield does not affect the cost of harvesting.
The harvesting costs with a machine are fixed and won't change whether
the machine is recovering 100 pounds an acre or 4,000 pounds per acre.
For more details about the cost of
machine harvesting check out the
sample spreadsheets.
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