I was disappointed to hear that John Burgess, who joined the Boortmalt team was let go just a couple of months into the job.

John, who is originally from the UK, had been working hard to mend relationships between farmers and Boortmalt, which many will be well aware are often strained.

John had made efforts to meet farmers and build customer relations as you would in any sales role. He also made an effort to make the French malting barley price, used to create the Boortmalt harvest price, available to farmers. This is something that farmers have been calling for for some time now. For whatever reason the heads of the company and John parted ways.

It appears Boortmalt are quite happy for the lack of transparency around price to continue.

It will be hard to fill the role, if he is to be replaced. There’s a shortage of agronomists in the country at present and plenty of jobs to be filled.