This is a YouTube video titled "John Deere Africa Middle East | 5090E | Paul Clark" featuring Paul Clark, the operations manager of Danrock, a third-generation family farm business. The content is a monologue-style discussion about their farming operations, focusing on their use of John Deere tractors and investment in macadamia nut farming. The video highlights operational efficiencies, equipment choices, and the potential of the macadamia industry. The transcript includes two speakers but does not feature Francisco Jimenez.
I'm Paul Clark Farm for Danrock. I'm the operations manager. It's a third generation family business. All our trees we make ourselves and.
We have no external customers and we.
Put a lot of emphasis on doing things right for the first time and the only time.
Your demand is always outstripped your supply. This year may be a little bit different because of external forces in the market. With China closing down again on hard lockdowns, the uptake of the sale hasn't been fantastic. But we still see that the Macadamia is a drop in the ocean with regards to the total tree nut basket. So the scope is still there. Macadamia is a fantastic tasting nut. It's got a very high oil content. It's a healthy nut. Danrock is investing heavily in the Macadamia field. We're farming for what's going to be the most cost effective for the next 20 years. We are trying and pushing as hard as we can for single parcel compaction. Has a great detriment to a long standing orchard. Less passes in the orchard just allows us to keep that oxygen in the soil, keep that tree healthy as much as possible. We chose to partner with John Deere.
A little over four years ago and.
We progressively started changing our entire tractor.
Fleet, which was a smarty box at.
That point, to only John Deere's, namely the 5090E, the 5075E and the 5055E. And we look to utilise those three models across all our properties for as many of our applications as we possibly can. The benefits have been dramatic. I can't share the exact numbers, but we originally went from probably 50 odd tractors to being doing the exact same.
Job with less than 30 John Deeres.
When you arrive in the morning, it starts. You don't require two tractors per driver to see which one's going to work Today. The flexibility it's given us in our workshops we have a set of filters.
A set of spares that is viable.
Across multitude of tractors across all our different sections. We're currently sitting with a little over 50 John Deere tractors at this moment in time. We'll probably be closer to about 150 John Deere tractors within the next 10 years within our fleet. I'm excited about that. I'm excited that we're able to keep as many of those as the same models as possible. Even our latest TLB we bought was a John Deere.
It has the same engine as the 1590.
That flexibility, that continuity is paramount to our operations. I am hopeful for the natindish in West Africa. I think the macadamia industry as a.
Whole has significant potential. We're really just scratching the tip of the iceberg.
