Operations
There are several infrastructure facilities such as imported metal green houses with computerized climate control, computerized irrigation systems, cold rooms, grading halls, reservoirs, spraying equipment, refrigerated trucks etc, that all enable Magana to produce superior quality roses. In addition, we have hired a technical consultant from Europe, who is an expert in the area of rose production to consult with us on a monthly basis on the quality of our flowers.
But without our employees the entire infrastructure would be in vain. Approximately 65% of our workforce constitutes women. This allows for the women in our community to be independent. In some cases, these women are also the breadwinners for their families, and we therefore feel it is important to support them. Magana Flowers opts to tap into the local surrounding communities to build its labor force. Indirect employment has also increased in these surrounding communities as a direct result of the growth of Magana Flowers.
Our operations are divided predominantly into two sections:
- Production Post
- Harvest
PRODUCTION
The quality of flower production and processing at Magana Flowers is supreme. We have setup various quality checks at different levels of production and export (post harvest) preparation to ensure that only the best quality product is exported.
Most of the flowers are grown under automated greenhouses with sensors that send messages to a centralized computer system that opens and closes the greenhouse vents depending upon environmental condition thereby maintaining greenhouse temperatures suitable for growing high quality roses.
The farm has embarked on growing its flowers in troughs on hydroponic media such as pumice or coco-peat (coconut husk). This enables the plants to be healthier and stronger as plants grown in troughs minimize the spread of diseases such as nematodes as individual infected troughs can be isolated and treated. Growing of the flowers in media and troughs using drip irrigation has enabled the farm to reduce its fertilizer costs while improving on the quality of its flowers. The plants are irrigated through a computerized feeding system. The unused fertilizer that is fed to the plants is collected, cleaned, mixed with fresh water and additional fertilizer if necessary and recycled into the greenhouses as needed. This recycling process conserves water, fertilizer and encourages better feeding of the crop.
POST HARVEST
The Post Harvest department is our Quality Assurance police. They inspect each and every stem that is harvested to ensure it is of superior quality. Flowers that do not meet the criteria for length, head size and colour are rejected at this stage. Diseased flowers are also rejected.
Once the quality has been certified by this department, the roses are prepared for shipping.
It usually takes about one and a half to two days to get our flowers from the greenhouses to the florist stores/supermarkets in Europe. This as a result ensures that our end consumers are getting the freshest, high quality roses from us.
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