Staff from DOJUS Agro, the largest supplier of Western farming equipment in the Baltics have visited Claydon Yield-o-Meter Limited at Wickhambrook, near Newmarket, to learn about the company’s Opti-Till strip seeding technique and its latest products.
During the first few weeks of 2022, the value of Claydon’s export sales to Eastern Europe has already exceeded those for the whole of 2021, which was a record year despite the challenges of Covid and Brexit. Employing 60 staff, the company exports 60% of production to 33 countries, across Europe to New Zealand and Chile.
Based in Lithuania, DOJUS Agro has operated for 25 years across Lithuania, Belarus, Russia’s Kaliningrad Region and Latvia, where Claydon machines have been on farm for the last 10 years. The company represents a range of leading manufacturers and became a distributor Claydon in Lithuania in 2018.
“We are delighted to be working with DOJUS Agro, a large, well-respected organisation with very high standards,” stated Andrei Botnari, Claydon’s export territory manager, who develops and supports Claydon’s dealers and customers across 20 countries, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. “During the last few months, our service engineers have travelled to Lithuania and Latvia to train DOJUS Agro’s technicians and this visit by eight product specialists, sales staff and agronomists is the first of three planned for the next two months.”
During their visit, the group toured Claydon’s factory, as well as sharing their knowledge and experience of Opti-Till machines in their own market. Claydon’s CEO Jeff Claydon explained the development of the range and showed them around the family’s arable farm before the group visited various local attractions.
Andrei Botnari, who graduated from the State Agrarian University of Moldova with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Agronomy and Crop Science, said that the 2021 COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow accelerated the need for farmers to change to more economically, timely and environmentally sustainable methods which reduce costs and crop inputs, whilst improving soil health and benefitting the environment.
“Regenerative agriculture is becoming increasingly important for farmers all over the world, including those in the Baltic countries. They are pioneers in the use of this technology and are looking to reduce costs by using a system that can cope with the climate. Claydon’s innovative products help to promote regenerative agriculture in many ways, such as rebuilding soil organic matter, improving water management and restoring the biodiversity of soils degraded by conventional cultivations.”