John Deere Africa Middle East | John Deere Financial | Paul Cluver Testimonial

Our recipes for success is our desire to produce fruit on a world class basis. Hi, I'm Paul Kluver. I'm part of a family business that's been farming in the Elgin area for well over 100 years, 120 years now. And we farm this fourth generation family business together with three of my sisters and my father and my brother in law. Paul Kluger Wines is not only in the wine business, but we also farm apples. It's actually traditionally an apple farm. It's still our biggest farming activity and what Algon is traditionally known for. So we have farm apples and pears, wine grapes, we've got a Hereford stud and we do ecotourism activities as well. My grandmother who started here did it because of her care for the environment. But she didn't only do that for an environment, she also did that by caring for the community. The apples are produced on the farm and then together with 11 other farmers we pack and market the fruit at Cromco and together we export to over 48 different countries. What many people tend to forget is that you look at a Golden Delicious apple, Royal Gala apple, and you think, oh, that's just one class. But the reality is that once you've started sorting it into different grains, that's only four, then you can have it in size grades, which can be up to 30 different size grades and then you have color grades with that as well. And before you know it, you've got well over 200 different SKUs, or unique stock items for, for one apple cultivar. So in total we grow about 10,000 tonnes of apples and pears. So we run a tractor fleet of just under 30 tractors, predominantly small orchard tractors. And that fleet's exclusively John Deere us today. And mainly because they are able to look after our demand. What is imperative these days, whether you are apple grower or wine grower, is that we are competing globally. And for that you need to be world class. And being world class means that you need your equipment to be reliable. When you need them, they need to be precise. But at the same time, one of the global pressures is diesel consumption. Not only from a economic point of view, but also from an environmental point of view. And John Deere ticks, all those boxes. For us traditionally we never used to finance our tractors until we actually were made aware of John Deere Financial. And for us it makes absolute sense. And mainly because of the interest rates that they were able to provide us. But secondly also because of the cash flow management in the whole process, it was for us a no brainer to move over to John Deere Financial. Our family's been working with John Deere tractors as long as I can remember. Our mission is to work exclusively with John Deere. It just makes sense from an equipment, from a maintenance point of view. We try and renew the fleet constantly. That ensures that you have reliability in your product. But it doesn't mean they don't last. I mean, we've got John Deere tractors like the 1140 that we've had in, think, for well over 30 years, and they're still going. Our long term dream for our family business is sustainability. And what that means is that we need to look after our environment. You need to look after our people. And we are only able to do that if we run a competitive business in a world class environment. We are definitely committed to John Deere tractors, and by that notion, we would also definitely recommend it for other growers.