This Is My Story: Mat Vercaigne
June 25, 2021
Mat Vercaigne is a Field Product Specialist at the Climate Corporation covering Eastern Canada. And while he may not have grown up on a farm, you’d never know it. In fact, farming is as big a part of who he is just as much as anyone who was born into it. Maybe even a little bit more. We’ll let him take it from here.
“I got my background in agriculture working with a family friend in southwest Manitoba and did that throughout high school – kind of got my feet wet with seeding, spraying, harvesting. The whole 10 yards”
From that moment on, he was hooked. Mat went on to complete his Bachelor of Science at the University of Saskatchewan followed by a Master's of Science degree with Bayer and the University of Alberta working on what would eventually become Bayer’s Olympus herbicide. After joining Bayer full-time, he made his way through a few roles before finally moving on to his current position in North Battleford.
“I provide technical support to our Climate Business Managers, Market Development team, other Bayer CropScience staff and growers on the functionality and capabilities within the FieldView™ platform. I also help implement Climate Corporation science protocols from our team in the U.S. to bring new FieldView tools and features to Canadian growers.”
But for Mat, his job runs deeper than the description. His role all adds up to making the lives of farmers, and Climate FieldView customers just a little bit easier by offering them the solutions they need to succeed. “Being able to understand what a grower needs to help make impactful decisions on their operations and how FieldView can help them achieve that is paramount. So, whether it’s a new tool development, disease modeling, or things like that, bringing in those new custom solutions to our growers and customers is what excites me.”
And while Mat has a tremendous passion for what FieldView can do, for him, it’s about more than the tools themselves. It’s about helping growers understand how those tools and the data they utilize to provide value enable them to make better decisions for their operations from seed to harvest. As Mat puts it. “For me, the future of digital farming and FieldView will focus on helping growers make more informed choices in regards to their cropping inputs so they can continue to see improvement on their operations season after season.”
Looking towards the future of FieldView in Canada, Mat sees a tremendous amount of opportunity to be an even better tool for Canadian farmers. “One of the things I’m really working towards with my colleagues on is really honing in on Canadian solutions. I feel we have a great product and tool offering in corn and soybeans and the next step is integrating those tools into other Canadian crops like wheat, canola and pulses; ”
When Mat punches out after a long day you can find him fishing, camping, golfing and spending time with his pandemic puppy and wife. Like we told you at the beginning of this article, agriculture really is a big part of who Mat is at work and at home.
