John Deere: Australia boss Luke Chandler on the future of ag machinery

Bred in country NSW, Luke Chandler reveals how he landed the managing director role and what the global machinery giant is planning next.

John Deere Australia and New Zealand managing director Luke Chandler.

Luke Chandler has covered a lot of ground in his career.

“We’ve had three kids on three continents,” says the recently appointed John Deere Australia boss, laughing about the legacy of his far-flung jobs. Originally from Inverell, in country NSW, Luke worked across Europe and Australia in wool, wheat and rural banking before taking a brave step six years ago, moving his young family to the US so he could take up the role of chief economist at John Deere headquarters in Moline, Illinois.

“It was a bit of a leap of faith if you like, to uproot the family and move to the other side of the world with a company you’ve never worked with, in a country where we had never lived,” he says.

Luckily, the family landed on their feet.

After five years at Deere’s US base, where his job involved picking the brains of global customers about the future of agriculture, Chandler was appointed managing director of John Deere Australia and New Zealand and is now back on home soil, working out of Queensland.

In the role, he plans to push ag machinery to new levels, and expand Deere’s construction and forestry business.

“I’m looking to partner with Australian agriculture and our customers to bring all the technology and investment John Deere is doing around the world to the Australian marketplace,” he says.

Deere’s strategy, he says, is to focus on precision and automation.

“Increasingly, with machine learning and artificial intelligence, we believe the future will be in plant-by-plant management as the machines go through the field,” he says.

“As machines become smarter and we integrate automation, I think that is definitely a part of the next generation of machines.”

Sustainability is also in the cross hairs.

“This is one of the biggest drivers we see in global agriculture, both at a policy level, in expectations from society, and from our customers and farmers,” he says. An example is John Deere’s new See and Spray tech.

“The machine can go through the field and tell the difference between a weed and a plant. In some of our trials we are showing that farmers can use 80 per cent less herbicide. That is more money in the pockets of farmers, and the environmental footprint for global agriculture is significantly improved as well,” he says.

Despite being small in comparison to the US market, Australian customers are definitely valued by John Deere, Chandler says.

“It’s an incredibly important market. One of our global leaders often uses the phrase, ‘If it works in Australia, it’ll work anywhere’, because they know how demanding Australian farmers can be, but also how tough the conditions can be as well,” he says.

John Deere Managing Director Australia and New Zealand Luke Chandler

REPAIR AND SUPPORT

Chandler recently announced a new initiative to honour technicians in the ag machinery sector.

The inaugural John Deere Technicial Awards were announced at the start of August, and are open to technicians from Deere dealerships.

Chandler says technicians are relied upon to deliver services integral to farmers’, and construction machinery contractors’, businesses and the awards would celebrate their contribution to their industries and local communities.

“These Awards are an opportunity to recognise the hard work and skill offered by these individuals, who are not celebrated enough for the fundamental role they play in assisting both their customers, communities, and their industry reach full potential,” he says.

“Australia and New Zealand’s John Deere technicians are some of the best in the world and proactively monitor equipment, provide customised support and help to ensure machinery operators and owners stay up-to-date with technology advancements.”

The ag machinery sector has been in the spotlight recently, with farmers calling for more competition and easily accessible information in the service and repair sector.

Chandler says John Deere fully supports farmers’ rights to choice when it comes to machinery repair, but did not condone modification of highly sophisticated machines.

The company’s Technical Awards finalists will show off their skills through hands-on testing, as part of the judging process. Finalists will be announced this month, with winners revealed later in the year.

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