Dave has been advising farming clients for 15 years, with the last 6 here in Western Australia. He ran his own client base in Zimbabwe. This included a wide range of crops - 48 farmers with diverse crops such as intensive greenhouse produced roses, tobacco, maize, cotton, soyabeans, citrus, coffee, mangoes and small scale vegetable production (tomatoes, cucurbits, beans). This also happened to be the last 4 years of commercial agricultural existence there, and at this time he was producing his own Hypericum flowers for the Dutch export flower market. This production was alongside seed sunflowers, soyabeans and maize on 200 acres leasehold, 25km west of Harare. Unfortunately, they became a statistic in September 2004 when they were frogmarched off the property and the honeymoon with Africa was over!
Since immigrating to Australia, he has worked with Landmark doing agronomy for the Central Wheatbelt regions incorporating Kellerberrin, Quairading, Meckering, York and Northam. In February 2009 he decided to again form a base of his own clients, and he does this under the Farmanco umbrella - specifically focussing on agronomy. Currently Dave advises on over 60’000ha of cereals, 15’000ha canola, 4’500ha of lupins/peas and 20’000ha of pasture for sheep production.
Dave's professional qualifications are a Diploma in Agriculture (TTI, Blackfordby Farm, Zim, 1993) and a Diploma in Rural Business Management (Tocal Ag College, NSW, 2006). From a computing perspective Dave mostly utilises Soilmate and BackPaddock software as well as Excel and PAM for his advisory service.
Highlights of his career so far include dealing with a diverse range of farm focussed clientele, and assisting to implement a cotton/sorghum scheme in Pandamatenga, Botswana - where the main incidental pests to cropping were elephants! Dave loves working within the challenges presented by Mother Nature on a daily basis, as well as most forms of sport.
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