Name:
Jim Wilson.
Age:
56.
What is your business called?
SoilEssentials.
Where is it based?
At Hilton of Fern, my farm which is near Brechin.
What does it produce, what services does it offer?
We supply our own range of precision agricultural solutions through a mix of products and services that make farmers’ lives easier and more profitable. We also act as an agent for US based precision agriculture systems company Trimble and have several other products and associated services we have either imported or developed.
Our EssentialsMAP is an online mapping system that we reskin and sell to other companies. It can show soil fertility maps, crop yield maps, soil type and now satellite and drone images.
EssentialsNet is a UK wide system which supplies GPS corrections to tractors to enable them to autosteer hands free to an accuracy of an inch.
To whom does it sell?
We sell to farmers and agricultural supply companies, currently in eight countries, and have ambitious expansion plans. Our technology allows them to maximise the value of their crops. Crop yield is always important, but comes second to quality. We have developed a range of spatial crop models which integrate current weather, soil types with mathematical models to help predict yield and quality.
For example, a potato crop will be grown to market specifications in terms of variety and size. Plants are planted with a wide spacing for a crop of baker potatoes or closer together for seed potatoes. Seed potatoes at 35mm to 55mm will fetch £280 per tonne. Those that reach 34mm might fetch £120 per tonne, or nothing at all. Meanwhile, the farmer has spent the same amount growing all the potatoes in the field.
EssentialsMAP allows growers to log in from anywhere in the world, or using a phone app, to zoom in on individual plants in their field in real time and see where the crop problems are. It can count every plant in the crop and map where in the field plants are thriving or struggling, giving the farmer greater control over manageable variables year on year.
What is its turnover?
£1.9 million last year.
How many employees?
25.
When was it formed?
The company incorporated in 2000.
Why did you take the plunge?
Because I’m a farmer and I could see there was a lot of variation in my crops. Sitting on my combine I could see a real difference in crop yield just 50 metres apart. We were spending the same money growing the high yielding area as we were on the poor yielding area and I wanted to find a way to understand why the yield varied so much when we were treating both areas exactly the same.
The partners were ( and remain) part of an agronomy group in the late 1990’s which was focussed on improving business profitability through improving efficiency. We found that we had a common interest in addressing the variability we saw every day in our crops and recognised that new technologies like affordable GPS receivers, combine yield monitors and laptops / handhelds offered an opportunity to do something about it that had never been possible before.
When we went commercial in 2000 I wrote the first desktop application to process soil sampling results, produce reports and create application maps. That was improved years later by a professional programmer and now it’s all written as a web application by five software engineers.
What were you doing before you took the plunge?
I was, and still am, a farmer, born and bred.
How did you raise the start-up funding?
Start-up funding came from the original four partners in the firm. We are all members of the same agronomy group and all facing the same problems . Today Robert Ramsay, from West Mains of Kinblethmont near Arbroath, is the other original director still involved.
What was your biggest break?
Highlights so far have been securing European Space Agency and Innovate UK funding for a number of research and development projects, and hiring our first member of staff. Also, we launched when breakthroughs in digital technology were revolutionising every other industry and agriculture had some catching up to do. This coincided with government measures introduced to manage food security and so we could access funding streams which were opened up to boost resilience and sustainability in UK food production.
What was your worst moment?
We have had our fair share of failures and have learned from all of them. On a personal level, it has been difficult at times to balance being a farmer with growing a technology business and spending time with the family.
What do you most enjoy about running the business?
Spending time with the people I work with. Farming on its own can be a very lonely job. Through SoilEssentials I’m interacting daily with an amazing team of people with wide and varied skills and interests. We have financial experts, agronomists, mathematicians, software developers, sales and marketing support. I also enjoy identifying problems I face as a farmer and thinking of new ways of applying technology to solve them.
What do you least enjoy?
Bureaucracy, which comes with government funded projects, and bad weather.
What are your ambitions for the firm?
There is so much global potential for the business and right now we are focusing on international expansion. Later this year we have the international launch of our new cloud based technology at Agritechnica, the world’s biggest agriculture machinery trade show which takes place in Hanover in November.
What are your top priorities?
We are focused on: improving our profitability by reaching out to new markets geographically; continuously improving what we do; investing for the future; developing new products; keeping hold of good staff and attracting new people of the right calibre.
What could the Westminster and/or Scottish governments do that would help?
Government could continue to help agriculture become an efficient, profit-driven industry by reducing bureaucracy. We are not overly concerned about the fallout from Brexit. Seventy per cent of our exports are software. If decisions on trade tariffs don’t go our way, I’m optimistic we will find a way around it.
What was the most valuable lesson that you learned?
I’m still learning, but so far it must be people management skills. It is essential for any business to succeed, and I had a lot to learn.
How do you relax?
By jumping on a tractor. I also enjoy skiing. I missed this year’s ski trip abroad because I was speaking at a conference in New Zealand.
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