Agrovista has appointed Jan Vos as regional sales manager for Scotland following the retirement of Jonathan Cahalin after 37 years of service.

Jan has been with Agrovista for nine years, most recently as area sales manager for the West of Scotland and the Borders. He has worked alongside Jonathan over the past year, which will result in a seamless transition from early April.

“As I take on the new role, my main goal is to maintain the job as it’s been expertly done by Jonathan for many years,” said Jan.

“I look forward to working with team members and growers through Scotland and we’ll evolve the job as required.”

People will be key to Agrovista’s future success in Scotland, Jan believes. “Among my long-term goals I will be looking to identify, train and, importantly, retain high quality staff who are inspired to do their best work.

“As an industry we are phenomenally good at produced high quality food. But we need the people to be able to continue doing this. All roles in agricultural are looking for more technologically proficient staff and it’s my hope that we can train and develop those staff to meet all the demands of modern agriculture.”

Jonathan joined Schering Agriculture in 1987, part of which became Profarma and then Agrovista, and has been an integral part of the company’s evolution and growth.

“In my time, I’ve seen Agrovista develop a strategy of diversifying into areas that complement the initial core business of crop protection, such as precision farming, seed, rural consultancy, nutrition and  bioscience products,” Jonathan said.

“This is a fast-moving industry, with technology now firmly at the centre of pretty much everything we do. The opportunity to develop a career in agronomy is still as strong as ever. The future looks very exciting, and we need young people to take on the challenge and reap the rewards.”