Antti’s new Sales Direc­tor Juho Urk­ko

In Sep­tem­ber, agricul­tu­ral engi­neer and MBA Juho Urk­ko began his role as Sales Direc­tor for Antti-Teollisuus’s agricul­tu­ral divi­sion. He knows first­hand both the chal­len­ges and rewards of Fin­nish far­ming: toget­her with his busi­ness part­ner, he cul­ti­va­tes bar­ley, oats, wheat, and peas on their farm in Pak­ka­la, Saha­lah­ti. Urk­ko encou­ra­ges far­mers to make invest­ment deci­sions now, as the pro­lon­ged down­turn in con­struc­tion has dri­ven down buil­ding and mate­rial costs.

The Ham­paa­la farm is loca­ted in Pak­ka­la, Saha­lah­ti, wit­hin the munici­pa­li­ty of Kan­ga­sa­la. The land has been in the same fami­ly since the 1500s. Today, the farm pro­duces bar­ley, oats, wheat, and peas on about 200 hec­ta­res, inclu­ding lea­sed fields. In 2023, the farm made major deci­sions by inves­ting in an enti­re­ly new grain drying faci­li­ty: an Ant­ti Stand Alo­ne dryer and a modern silo complex desig­ned to meet cur­rent needs.

“It was an easy deci­sion to apply for a posi­tion at Ant­ti. The role see­med inte­res­ting, and from my own expe­rience, I knew that the com­pa­ny manu­fac­tu­res high-qua­li­ty pro­ducts. Also, as a fami­ly busi­ness whe­re the owners are acti­ve­ly invol­ved, the deci­sion-making see­med straight­forward and the orga­niza­tion flat. That’s qui­te a cont­rast to my pre­vious posi­tion in a lar­ge agricul­tu­ral retail cor­po­ra­tion,” Urk­ko says.

The first few weeks at Ant­ti have been fast-paced. Alt­hough the industry is fami­liar to Urk­ko, there’s been a lot to learn. Autumn is a busy sea­son for Ant­ti, with many industry events and cus­to­mers plan­ning invest­ments for the coming sum­mer. Urk­ko now leads Antti’s agricul­tu­ral sales orga­niza­tion, a team of seven pro­fes­sio­nals wor­king across domes­tic and export mar­kets.

“I’ve been warm­ly welco­med, and the onboar­ding has been excel­lent. It’s been great to see that many emplo­yees have been with Ant­ti for a long time and are true experts in their field. Ant­ti is the mar­ket lea­der in Fin­land. Still, I hope to bring my own pers­pec­ti­ve and exper­ti­se to the team based on my background and expe­rience. We’re par­ticu­lar­ly aiming for growth in export mar­kets across the Nor­dics, the Bal­tics, and Cent­ral Euro­pe.”

Antti’s pro­ducts draw glo­bal inte­rest

At the time of the inter­view, the­re are on-going pre­pa­ra­tions for Agri­tech­nica, the world’s lar­gest agricul­tu­ral tra­de fair in Han­no­ver, Ger­ma­ny. Inter­na­tio­nal­ly, Antti’s grain drying solu­tions stand out for their advanced tech­no­lo­gy and att­ract con­si­de­rable atten­tion. In many export mar­kets, grain drying tech­niques dif­fer sig­ni­ficant­ly – and in some regions, drying isn’t requi­red at all. In the drying of moist grain and batch drying tech­no­lo­gy, Antti’s Nor­dic exper­ti­se is world-class.

“For a farm, inves­ting in a grain dryer is pri­ma­ri­ly a stra­te­gic deci­sion. You shouldn’t focus only on a single season’s har­vest. If the farm intends to con­ti­nue grain pro­duc­tion, long-term invest­ments are essen­tial. Now is an excel­lent time to build new faci­li­ties, as con­struc­tion costs have drop­ped com­pa­red to the price peaks of a few years ago,” Urk­ko notes.

“The same applies to grain sto­ra­ge. Many farms are now inves­ting in sto­ra­ge capaci­ty, as it allows them to choo­se when to sell their grain and aim for hig­her prices. During har­vest time, grain prices are usual­ly at their lowest,” Urk­ko adds.