| 41 RURAL SOLUTIONS » Advance Agriculture Paddles helping to propel the business Advance Agriculture Arable Specialist Martin (Paddles) Sloane. Richard Loader Arable Specialist Martin (Paddles) Sloane has been on a seven-year journey with Advance Agriculture, nding his place in life and his career passion. A true Southern man, Martin grew up in a large rural family on his parents’ sheep and beef farm. While he completed a building apprenticeship on leaving school, the draw back to the land was too great. “I’d been farming for ten years when I started looking at a change. I’ve always been machinery orientated and the stock side was never a strength. I knew that would prevent me from getting into farm management and the opportunity for farm ownership seemed reasonably dif cult. I wanted to have a crack at something new.” At that time Advance Agriculture was looking for a Technical Field Rep (TFR) and an Arable Rep — the problem was Martin didn’t feel he had the right t for either of those roles. “One of Advance Agriculture’s Technical Field Reps was Scott Laurence, who I knew from the farm I was working on. I also knew Iain Wilson, one of Advance Agriculture’s Directors. Scott suggested I give Iain a call, which I did, and they created a delivery role for me.” Advance Agriculture was going through signi - cant growth, and the delivery role was designed to ease pressure on Managing Director Howard Clarke, who at the time was also the company’s arable specialist. Martin was assigned to deliver agri-chemicals to farmers and often accompanied Howard on delivery journeys throughout Southland. “I got to see what Howard did for a job, in terms of being the arable specialist, and understand the pressures and effort that went into the job. I saw Howard going onto farms and advising farmers about things that I’d never seen or heard of before. What he knew and how much knowledge he had was quite impressive. I thought that I quite liked the look of that, and asked him if he would be up to training me to be an arable rep.” From that moment on Martin was in the truck with Howard, learning from him and soaking up knowledge like a sponge, returning home at night to study the technical side of the job. “It took me about two years to become the arable specialist, working closely with Howard. I still utilise Howard’s knowledge quite a bit, and he’s still a great backstop. There are not many of those sorts of people around, and his experience and expertise are partly why the company is so successful today.” As Arable Specialist, Martin is directly involved in a large number of arable farms throughout Southland and South Otago, responsible for helping farmers achieve pro table crops. “I cover a massive area and manage a large range of crops, and through the use of Agworld to record and manage, it allows me to be thorough in crop management. I also spend a lot of time with other reps. If they’re growing arable crops I get involved and help them out in areas they aren’t as experienced in. I enjoy the opportunity to mentor those people, remembering what it was like when I rst started. The role is addictive. I have grabbed the arable side of the business with both hands and run with it, while others might nd it challenging.” Martin says that most of the time ‘by the book’ answers are correct, but sometimes don’t t the speci c situation, so it is coming up with practical solutions with farmers, that do t their farming needs. “What we do is very farmer focused. There are no targets. It’s about looking at what the farmer needs to be pro table and successful. You do get involved with the farming families and I can see myself doing it a for a long time.” The smartest Glyphosate is now available in 20 L, 200 L and 1000 L pack sizes from Advance Agriculture. Contact the team for more details on: 0800 227 226 We are a locally owned plant breeding & seed supply company supplying superior fodder beet genetics to NZ farmers www.cropmarkseeds.co.nz | 0800 427 676
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