Agronomist

SUMMARY:

A multinational agricultural company is seeking an Agronomist to be responsible for driving a farmer-centric approach by providing technical expertise and support to optimize crop productivity and farm profitability. The Agronomist will develop strong relationships with farmers and key stakeholders to understand the challenges they face, leading to the delivery of tailored agronomic solutions.

POSITION INFO:

Minimum requirements for the role:

• Must have a Bachelor’s degree in Agronomy, Horticulture or Agriculture
• Basic CropLife course qualified (or willing to qualify)
• Minimum 2 years’ experience in account management or managing relationships with large-scale farms (preferred)
• Sound understanding of the South African agricultural landscape, including techno-commercial aspects
• Strong presentation skills with the ability to engage diverse audiences
• Must be an effective communicator across all levels of an organization
• Knowledge of business drivers within arable agriculture is advantageous
• Proven experience in building and maintaining successful business relationships
• Experience of working in agriculture and understanding the crop growing cycle
• Experience of working in and contributing to successful team working
• Proven record of communicating across a wide target audience
• Must have a valid driver’s license and be willing to travel locally and abroad

• Using a combination of interpersonal and technical skills to suitably influence and accelerate the purchase of the company’s products.
• Successfully implementing agreed marketing campaigns within a specific target area.
• Building, developing, and maintaining an Area Grower Map for the given geographic area, including farm and crop details, grower information, and demographic data – housed and maintained on SalesForce.com.
• Exploring and developing biopotential alignment with the iPlan and Crop Atlas data.
• Regularly liaising and aligning with the relevant Key Account Manager (Sales Manager) and Campaign Managers in furtherance of the Sales Key Account Plan.
• Managing an optimum portfolio of key growers and growing the company’s market share in the area.
• Facilitating positive influence on the wider grower network, aimed at demand generation and aligned with the implementation of marketing campaigns.
• Regularly coordinating demand generation activity with the local Key Account Manager (Sales Manager) and Technical Leads.
• Managing other key influencers in the area in line with campaign direction, e.g., study groups, large growers, Potato Growers SA, etc.
• Supporting the achievement of sales targets for the defined sales area by influencing grower purchasing decisions.
• Feeding back market intelligence and value chain information to relevant members of the company’s team.
• Maintaining good communication and networking across multi-functional business.
• Actively contributing to the regional campaign teams with relevant market information and trends.
• Having full technical knowledge and commercial perspective of the company’s and key competitor products and relevant crops.
• Supporting Campaign Leads with the conversion of trial data to sales and marketing messaging.
• Operating within all legal and company policy frameworks.
• Continuously promoting the company’s Health, Safety, and Environmental activities by ensuring all operations under direct control comply with HSE policies and guidelines as well as other relevant company or statutory policies.
• Closely aligning with technical personnel of the Channel network on all technical aspects and benefits/ROI of the company’s product range.