Witnessing pineapple harvest on Sunday

September 04, 2022

A work can be done easily when a team is in unity.

It's Sunday! A family day, a rest day. This is the day where most employees have their rest day, but this morning when I opened the door, I was surprised to see workers in the pineapple field. It wasn't common to see workers in the field on Sundays.

When I saw them, they are still preparing for work, having their breakfast first and then wear their harvesting outfit.

When they started harvesting, I decided to bring my son nearer to them because he is so curious about it. He keep on asking how people harvest it and want to saw a lot of pineapples.

Our house is facing the pineapple field where it is around 15-20 meters away only. So, we just walk towards it and witnessed how the harvester harvested pineapples.

Look how they harvested it. They just pick pineapples, put it in one place temporarily and then they will pass usually two pineapples at a time until it will reach to the one side of the pineapple block.

I was amazed looking at them because they are good in throwing and catching pineapples.

They wear hats and jackets to protect them from the heat of the sun. They also wear thick pants or wear that white thick plastic pants to protect them from thorns of pineapple leaves. They also wear cotton and rubber gloves to protect their hands and easy grip of the pineapple.

Have you noticed someone who is ahead of them? As we walk along the block roads looking at them, I noticed one employee who is working alone. I told her, "Te, why you are alone?" She then said, I have to harvest pineapples in the first 2 or 3 rows before the team will put their harvested pineapples in these row. I then understand why is that so. In that particular row, the pineapples are being put for another worker to remove crowns of the pineapple.

Here are the harvested pineapples with crowns. Then, two members of the team were removing crowns. (I don't have a picture of them because they were shy and I have to respect them.)

These are pineapples without crown. They are in different sizes and colors because they are harvested for operation and processing for pineapple juices.

I saw a woman standing along the block road monitoring the workers. I went to her and asked if she is the team leader and she nodded.

I asked her why they are still working even on Sunday. She then said that the operation and processing needs more fruits for tomorrow. I also asked her that is it okay with them that they don't have rest day. She then said that they dont have work yesterday and it serves as their rest day.

I also found some defect in the fruits. That one in the picture above shows sunburn. Yes, even fruits are suffering from sunburn and its peel becomes brown and dry.

This is something unique because it has multiple crowns and some have more crowns than this but we can find few of them.

Wow! the fruit looks so sweet. This is a ripe pineapple.

This one is a giant pineapple bigger than the Mt. Matutum, oh I am just kidding.

This a pineapple field with Mt. Matutum as a background. The Matutum is so clear this time showing us its amazing beauty, an amazing nature.

This is a pineapple block road where the boom harvester and the bin truck can passed through. It's almost a week that the harvesting activity is going on here making grasses on this block road almost died.

Since we are here, we also had a walking exercise on the block road but my son loves to run as fast as he can leaving me in a distance.

After lunch, the bin truck came and they started carrying pineapples to the bin. Some were in the bin catching pineapples and one is receiving a big basket filled with pineapples. There are harvester below to throw pineapples to the catcher and others are putting pineapples in the basket and two of them are bringing it up to the bin alternately.

I was amazed how they work in unity. Each of them have different task and assignment to do and they are working through it accordingly. They have a specific goal or quota to reach which is to make a full load of the bin truck. Sometimes they can't reach the quota if the fruits are few and small. But there are also times that they could harvest more than of their goal. They were paid in daily rate basis.

That was a hand pick way of harvesting pineapples. The other way is to use boom truck where the harvester don't need to throw and catch pineapples because the boom truck have a part to carry pineapples up to the bin truck.

All photos are mine.
Thank you so much for reading.

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Work. Have fun. Earn and learn.