Renee Pye runs the Pye Group, a third-generation family farm across 55,000 hectares in South Australia and Victoria that grows potatoes for major supermarkets and exports to Southeast Asia. The operation uses 30 John Deere six-series tractors and 69 connected machines for real-time tracking and precision farming, cutting fuel costs and reducing soil compaction across its remote, sprawling footprint.
Chapters
I love growing produce because it's something that we've done as a family for generations. It's amazing going across Australia and you can see your produce like as far as Townsville in the supermarket. I wouldn't imagine myself doing anything else now that I've been in the family business for about 10 years. My name's Renee Pye and I'm the General Manager of the Pye Group, which encases Prilla Premium Potatoes and Zarella Fresh. I'm a I'm a third-generation farmer here in Australia. Our business started in New Zealand with my grandfather as the Pye Group, and then my grandfather and my father, as well as my mum, moved here to start a potato growing operation in the Mallee region. We've got about 55,000 hectares across South Australia and a bit into Victoria. We've got farms as far as Mount Gambier and Robe, and then as well as in Virginia, so just 45 minutes north of Adelaide. So here in the Mallee region, we're growing crisping potatoes, potatoes, French fried potatoes, and fresh potatoes that are going to 3 major supermarkets. We're also selling to Southeast Asia as well. Sort of looking on an annual basis, we've got about 500 employees. It obviously fluctuates between the seasonal times. We get quite a few backpackers in from Europe that help, but otherwise we've got a really good mix of people from all over the world here, as well as some great Australians in the packing sheds and on the farms.
We've been supporting Pye since early 1990 when they moved over from New Zealand to Australia. We've been supporting with the John Deere product from then. As the technology has rolled out, they've integrated a lot more with the technology of the John Deere system.
The Pye Group has 69 John Deere equipment connected and also a handful of other John Deere equipment that's not connected, like the older tractors that's been retired into chasers.
John Deere equipment's been really reliable for us. Here on the farms we've got 30 6 Series tractors. They're doing things from planting onions, planting potatoes, as well as doing some fertiliser spreading and also doing some damma dikeing and cultivation and those sorts of things across the farm. These potatoes, you're looking for the size. They make sure that they fit the specification of the customer that we're selling to. They're perfect. The factory will be very happy with them.
The 6 Series tractors is also a really Universal, easy-to-use tractor, especially for backpackers and seasonal workers.
It's a suitable horsepower for what they require for the machinery that they're dealing with. Obviously, with the row crop vegetable industry, we change out the tyres of the machine itself, so we go the taller, skinnier row crop tyres for a lot less compaction and also to get over those bedrows of the plantings.
The support from our dealership is great. They always make sure that they've got parts in stock that we're going to continuously need month month, especially when it comes to the point where we're planting and production is really busy. That's when we can't have downtime, so we need to make sure that we've got those parts in stock and that everything's fixed right and that we can continue on. We've been using John Deere Financial for over 20 years. We found it great to go to John Deere Financial in regards for getting tractors, and sometimes we need things quite quickly. Everything's already set up there. We don't need to go in and do all the checks and balances every single time we want to go through through and get a new piece of equipment. John Deere Financial has been great with the digital side of things. Like, often my father's the one who signs off on all those things, and he travels a lot, whether he's looking at new equipment or looking on farm. So it's great that he can just get his iPad, sign off digitally on those sorts of things, as well as, you know, looking at rates and making sure they're competitive. Our dealerships across all of the detail, as well as us, so we can communicate with the dealership and John Deere Financial on what we need and making sure that all the rates and the detail is right within in that document.
The technology now which is coming through, they've been able to adapt with that. It's definitely helped their operation and management of their operation that they're trying to achieve. The JDLink is a huge advantage for them because they are such a remote company and spread Australia-wide, and JDLink linking back into operation centre with their machines, they can track and see where machines are real-time.
I'm always connected. If I'm not at my phone, I'm in the office. If I'm not in the office, I'll be in my ute, so I always have access within 2 minutes. Benefits is precision, fuel savings, you save a lot of time, there's no double work anymore. We do use OpCentre for a lot of those records for audit purposes. Everything is being recorded.
I mean, there weren't computer screens I remember as a kid in the tractors whatsoever. It was a lot more of a manual process, but we're always keen to continue to adopt to new technology because it helps us run more efficiently and helps us understand more as a farming operation. We're still a family business here in the Mallee, so my dad's still heavily involved going out, checking on all the pivots. And my brother, he's also in the business as well, so he's getting a real handle on things and he's definitely wanting to explore and expand more. I have two young boys and when they grow up, it would be great if they wanted to come back to the farm. As a horticultural producer, we would definitely recommend John Deere as something that someone else is looking for in their business.
