David Benjamin purchased green equipment when he started farming in southern Alberta. The first-generation farmer knew the brand well, and it offered him the ability to buy any implement he might need with the confidence the equipment would be decent.

Benjamin runs a couple thousand acre hay and forage operation in addition to doing custom fertilizer spreading. As his operation grew, he realized a change in equipment was needed. The dealership he had been working with changed ownership and Benjamin became frustrated with the support he was getting. 

Meanwhile, former Noble Equipment (2023 Dealership of the Year) salesperson Joe Messina through his various networks had started reaching out to Benjamin. 

As Benjamin tells it, that initial introduction was good because it was just that — an introduction. 

“A local cattle rancher dropped our name in a conversation when they were speaking with them,” he says. “Next thing you know, we got a call and it was a very good solicitation from Noble. It was very genuine and just an introduction. It wasn’t high pressure or anything.”

Mark Bradley, general sales manager says, “He just kept following up. It took several times before he even got in front of him because he was all John Deere at the time.”

The perseverance paid off, though. The relationship started with an inquiry about renting a tractor, Bradley says. “That evolved from renting a tractor to us taking out and showing him other producers who were running the tractor and really selling the concept of a different way. He ended up buying his first JCB.” 

Noble Equipment’s Ponoka, Alta., location supports hay, forage and material handling customers throughout central Alberta. Source: Noble Equipment

That first tractor purchase was in 2021. Along with the JCB Fastrac 4220, Benjamin bought Krone triple mowers. At the time of the purchase, his tractor had gone down and Benjamin says it was specific to the job they needed to do at that time of year. 

“It was on the roster to be replaced or upgraded, but we didn’t know quite when. We thought we still had a year or two before making the upgrade,” he says. “We ended up making the package deal purchase a year or two earlier than we had thought, but they stepped up and we were able to sell two pieces of equipment and replace them with one.”

Benjamin notes that he was looking for more than just a new dealer but also wanted more from the equipment used on the farm. 

“We changed brands so that we could get the absolute perfect implement for each task around the farm,” he explains. “Buying a single brand of tractor and implement for the entire farm was no longer working for us. We were finding ourselves limited in the flexibility and multi-tasking capability of our implements and tractors when we bought based on color. We want our tractors to be able to hook up to any implement on the farm, instead of tractors with only 1-2 jobs per year.”

When it came to finding a dealer to work with, Benjamin says he was looking for a company that carries a majority of the tractors and implements they needed on the farm. “That was a higher priority than all pieces of equipment being the same color,” he says. 

In other words, he was looking at the product offering, not color consistency. He didn’t make the switch without doing his homework. 

“We looked at many dealers and their offerings, with strict attention to their customer service ability,” Benjamin says.” Dealerships that were focused on specific areas of agriculture such as the forage industry, were becoming more appealing to us.”

Noble Equipment rose to the top because of its “subject matter experts” on staff and in key roles who understood the forage business.  In 2025, Nobel Equipment was named JCB’s Ag Dealer of the Year, a global recognition. 

“We’re a forage farm, so working with a dealership that is forage-based was incredibly interesting and desirable for us because you have salesmen who understand how to put up hay or silage, as an example,” Benjamin says. “Versus, you go to some of these big chains, certain salesmen might be good at selling combines or air seeders, but they may not know anything about a hay baler.”

Going the Extra Mile 

Benjamin’s farm is located between 2 of Noble’s 3 locations (about 90 minutes in either direction). Benjamin says the distance has never been taken into consideration because it’s never been an issue. From a service standpoint, Benjamin does some maintenance and repairs himself, a mobile service tech comes out for others and he also will bring equipment into the store for service as well. 

“More importantly, their service truck is a bit less expensive as well. So bringing them out, even though they’re an hour and a half away, is less expensive than some of the competitors.”

Bradley recalls that Benjamin has said over the years that Noble’s service outperforms the competition. “The comment that I know he’s made to me and he made to our salesman at the time is that our closest location is just over an hour away. And it was his quote, not ours, that we give him better service than the dealer that was 15 or 20 minutes away,” Bradley says. 

Noble Equipment has a variety of service vehicles ranging from traditional crane-equipped service trucks to fully equipped service vans capable of service, maintenance, and repairs. Source: Farm-Equipment

That is something Bradley says is ingrained in the Noble Equipment staff. “That’s our place in this whole commercial activity,” he says. “We’re here to support the equipment. David saw that as he was buying equipment, that he could trust us. He saw the level of support he was receiving.”

Solutions Focused 

After the initial purchase, Noble Equipment staff took Benjamin around to other farms to show him different ways to do hay production or material handling, Bradley says. “He got further exposure. His whole fleet went from completely green to now there isn’t a single piece of green equipment there,” he says. 

Benjamin has found that dealers like Noble Equipment and shortline and European manufacturers are more tuned into providing solutions. A large part of that, he says, is that the European equipment is often what he describes as multi-use. “As an example, a tractor isn’t a single use tractor. A European tractor typically has all of the attachment options to do things like front hitches and front PTOs,” he says. “So you have options with your implements. A tractor can be a multi-use tractor, and we don’t see that a lot with North American equipment.”

Noble Equipment is focused on providing solutions, even if they don’t know the answers themselves. Benjamin praises the staff for their honesty when they haven’t known the answer to a question. “They tell you they don’t know, but they will go get you an answer,” he says. “That gave me an enormous amount of confidence in working with them.”

He says Noble loops in representatives from the OEM when needed to ensure he’s getting the information he needs to make a decision. 

The complete conversion took about 4 years and by 2025 Benjamin had switched out all of his equipment. In addition to JCB tractors and Krone triple mowers, he has bought an AgriSpread AS120 fertilizer spreader and a Caltech bale wagon, both of which are Irish manufacturers, and Krone Swadro hay rakes, Comprima silage baler and V190 high-density round baler. He also bought another 4220 Fastrac iCON in 2025. He also has a European model Horsch Avatar no-till drill.

Reflecting on the full changeover of his equipment fleet, Benjamin says, “If a farmer were to close their eyes and dream of the perfect fleet of equipment, would it look the same as what’s in their shed? Our farm being first generation ironically gave us a unique opportunity to embrace in this growth phase with almost zero bias. 

“We were able to ask ourselves the hard questions about what the right tool for the job would be, without historical preferences indicating how things are already done on this farm. I often wish I had generational guidance farming in this area, but I’m very fortunate to have friends and farming mentors that I can lean on for advice.”

At the end of the day, he says, customer service in a dealership wins every time.

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