Claydon Drills, which designs and manufactures the world-renowned Claydon Opti-Till® direct strip till seeding system, has appointed James Owen as territory manager for the North and Scotland.
Reporting to Rob Dunk, Claydon’s sales manager – UK and Ireland, James is working with the company’s dealers to look after existing and potential customers in an area north of a line from the River Humber to Rochdale in Lancashire. His area borders the regions covered by fellow Claydon UK Territory Managers Charlie Eaton (Wales and West/South West) and Taig Norman (East).
Growing up on the Owen family’s arable and pig farm at Garton-on-the-Wolds in East Yorkshire James loved agriculture and decided to make it his career. On leaving school he spent three years studying at Bishop Burton College, gaining a Higher National Diploma in Agriculture.
James began his career in 2001 and for three years worked for large farming companies in Yorkshire before joining Allied Grain, which subsequently merged with Banks Cargill Agriculture to form Frontier Agriculture. For seven years he was a member of the team responsible for operating the company’s crop trials programme throughout the UK. Wanting to progress his career into agricultural sales he joined Farmway, one of the North’s leading agricultural and rural retail businesses, which was purchased by Mole Valley Farmers in 2012.
James’ main interests being machinery and technology, in 2014 he became Area Sales Manager for SoilEssentials, an Angus-based precision farming solutions business. Latterly James spent three years working for Agco dealer Peacock and Binnington before moving to John Deere dealer RBM Agriculture at Market Weighton in East Yorkshire, which was subsequently acquired by Ripon Farm Services.
“I am delighted to be working for Claydon Drills, which is a very well-respected family-owned business that is recognised as the leader in strip seeding technology,” James states. “I am looking forward to working with and supporting all our dealers and customers in the area and already in my first few weeks with the company have been involved with a number of well-attended, socially-distanced working demonstrations. These were held in conjunction with two of our dealers, Rickerby Limited which sells and supports Claydon products in the North East/North West of England and South of Scotland, together with Robert D Webster which represents us in East Yorkshire, parts of South Yorkshire, and North Lincolnshire.
“Farmers are looking for ways to reduce production costs without compromising yields and the Claydon Opti-Till® System enables them to achieve that. Many are now seriously considering moving on from traditional plough-based and min-till methods to a much more time, cost, and resource-efficient system which significantly benefits soil structure and health.Claydon products have been helping customers to do that for 17 years and the Opti-Till® System is now used successfully by hundreds of farmers throughout the UK, from Cornwall to Orkney.”
