Greenports support growers to innovate continually
It is no mean task for a small enterprise: hiring good and sufficient temporary staff as well as properly managing the permanent team. And then at the same keeping abreast of all new information about crop cultivation. New greenports will be playing a central role in all this. And Applied Plant Research (PPO) will be one of the contributors.
Utilising all available knowledge is vitally important for a sector to keep up competition with foreign countries. This is difficult for a small sector such as the tree nursery sector. Certainly when cultivation is spread over a number of regions in the country.
Regional knowledge centres
Greenports will be providing support. These will become regional knowledge centres in which education, research, entrepreneurs and governments will be collaborating as partners. For a large part this will involve mutual communication: inform each other about each other’s activities. Research organisations such as PPO will be contributing the results of their research. This will enable the further development of the commercial enterprises.
The greenports are not only focusing on management development but also on improvement of the labour market. The number of temporary staff on holdings is continually increasing. And growers find it difficult to properly manage and train permanent as well as temporary personnel.
Life-long learning
The regionally oriented greenports can also play a role in this. They offer training programmes that enable life-long learning by employees as well as employers. Everyone is responsible for his/her own career. And the collaborating partners are also investigating how problems to acquire sufficient and properly trained personnel can be solved. A regional greenport, e.g., enables regional organisation of the labour market rather than a sectoral organisation.
This is how collaboration within the greenports enables farmers and growers to continually develop and innovate on the basis of the latest knowledge.