Around the World in Agriculture
Find out how I got into agriculture and started my journey. Growing up on a hobby farm in New South Wales, Australia, I was surrounded by sheep, cattle, and mixed pastures, which sparked my interest in agricultural sciences
Danny Sherlock
Reading time: 6 minutes
Around the World in Agriculture
What an eventful first month at Aiva! After my first week of admin and introductions, I was on a trip to Spain with three colleagues to meet our supply partner, Daymsa. This was an incredible week learning about the source and manufacturing of humic and fulvic acids, as well as other high quality plant stimulation products.
As an introduction, my history in agriculture begins in New South Wales, Australia where I grew up on a hobby farm with sheep and cattle, growing mixed pastures and lucerne. From this my interest in agriculture grew and I went on to study Agricultural Science at Charles Sturt University. After university I worked for a short time on a couple of dairy farms before starting as an agronomist in my local area of Bega, home of Australia’s most famous cheese – Bega Cheese. My agronomy here specialised in beef and dairy farming with emphasis on tailored diverse pasture mixes, maize for silage as well as soil analysing and fertiliser recommendations.
After two travel expeditions of 2006 and 2009 around UK, Europe and Middle East, I moved to Ely in Cambridgeshire to live with my girlfriend (now wife). At this stage I was quite interested in human health and knew that agriculture played a role in this due to the way we were treating the soil. I had begun reading Graeme Sait’s book ‘Nutrition Rules!’ which inspired me to start a position as a Soil Fertility Specialist for the next seven years. This developed my understanding of soil and plant health with the interaction of microbiology much further and paved the way for my understanding of what is now commonly termed ‘Regenerative agriculture’.
In 2017 I was back in Australia, returning to my old agronomy role where my knowledge in soils was applied in bespoke fertiliser and nutrition applications, extending to orchard and vegetable situations. At this time sustainable/regenerative farming was gaining momentum with many more carbon and biological products available and customers searching for alternatives to look after their soil.
After five years of drought, fires and floods in Australia I was back on ‘muddy’ soils in the UK. On this return I veered into the world of veg and salads at G’s based near Ely. In this role I worked on trials and innovations, staying ahead by trialling any new or potential products, whether it was pest or weed management, nutrition or beneficial microbes.
Now, I am back to a role where I enjoy the interaction with farmers and improving the life on their farm. Aiva has a great team with some members I have worked with before and Aiva has a great ethos with treating the farm system as a whole, which really appeals to me.
Let's Connect!
I look forward to meeting and speaking to many of you over the coming months. I’m happy to answer any questions or chat on topics you’re interested in at the end of the phone or out on the farm.
