A cover-all solution for growth

FUTURE PROOF: Samco Agricultural ManufacturingDeveloping a plastic layer to protect young seedling from adverse weather conditions has been a huge success

COMPETITION FOR workers, high interest rates and problems preserving grass led agricultural contractor Samuel Shine to diversify and innovate. The Limerick-based entrepreneur now runs a multi-million euro manufacturing company, employing 28 people in Ireland, 25 people in China and two in France.

Shine began his career as an agricultural contractor for 20 years, a business in which he had more than 30 people employed. At the end of the 1980s though, he began to see changes in the industry.

“Farmers were tight for money at the time so you would have to have at least £2,000 in the bank before you could take on a job, to pay for diesel, wages etc, as often the farmer wouldn’t pay you for months.

“Builders were taking a lot of my workers as they were able to offer them a lot more money than I was, and interest rates on loans were huge.”

In 1991, Shine began to notice many of his contracting customers were having problems preserving grass.

“We decided to take samples of the grass for testing and found it was very high in nitrogen, most likely from the slurry we were spreading in February/March. We looked for an alternative crop that could grow successfully in the region and came up with maize.”

Maize was grown in Ireland at the time but was very inconsistent, so Shine looked for ways to improve the crop reliability. He bought a machine from France to plant the maize, lay plastic on it and then punch holes in the plastic.

“We had 1.5 metres of rain though, unlike France. As a result the water ran down the plastic into the holes and rotted the seed. On a good note, the machine often got stuck and stones would knock the seed-to-hole alignment, causing some plants to be sown completely under the plastic with no exposure to the elements. We accidentally discovered this was much better.”

Shine set about developing his own three-in-one machine that would lay the plastic, but that didn’t punch holes. The plastic layer protected the young seedling from adverse weather conditions and frosts. It also increased the ground and air temperatures, creating conditions in an Irish field that would be similar to a field in France.

Since then, the use of plastic for growing maize has increased substantially year on year, according to Shine, with more than 60 per cent of the crop here now grown under plastic.

Key to the successful uptake has been the development of biodegradable plastic. Up until 2004, the plastic used by the Samco three-in-one machine was being made in France, but that year the firm decided to go back to the drawing board and design its own product.

With the help of the Polymer Research Centre at Athlone IT, the company developed a more improved version of the plastic which was environmentally friendly.

“We couldn’t get anyone in Ireland to make the plastic as it was 2005, the height of the boom, and everyone was very busy then. We approached a factory in China. Two workers there said the factory wouldn’t be able to do it but they could help us so we employed them and set about setting up our own factory there.”

The company also quickly discovered Ireland was not a big enough market for the three-in-one machine and the degradable mulch film and began exporting.

“Plastic now accounts for 85 per cent of our business with 90 per cent of our turnover coming from abroad,” says Shine.

France has become a huge customer of the Samco products accounting for €2 million of the company’s turnover. “We have two people employed there now as we had so much business coming from the country. We are also exporting to Russia, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands and China,” he says.

The company is hoping to branch into manufacturing plastic at its Adare plant for the European and Canadian markets, which will see the numbers employed there increase to 40.

“Turnover will be €6 to €7 million this year and I think this will reach €10 million next year.”