VALDOSTA — With the sounds of progress in the background, members of the Valdosta community took the opportunity to welcome Roberts Irrigation to the area and to see first hand the renovation efforts being poured in to the company’s newest production facility during the official announcement ceremony Thursday.

As a wholly owned subsidiary of Deere & Company, Roberts Irrigation Products Inc. is one of the world’s leaders in high performance precision irrigation, selling its products in more than 40 countries. The 36,000-square-foot facility will service markets in the eastern United States as well as export markets in eastern Latin America, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean as far away as Africa, according to President John Roberts.

The company is already preparing for future expansion into a neighboring 40,000-square-foot building and is expected to provide 65 new jobs paying above this region’s average wages over the next five years. The company also is making a $5.3 million capital investment in the community.

As a global leader in the agriculture irrigation market, Roberts Irrigation is also no stranger to South Georgia. For nearly 20 years, the company has supplied its products to this community through a long-standing relationship with United Irrigation, a wholesale dealer located in Quitman. Roberts stated that it was the relationship with United Irrigation that first introduced the company to the people and the culture of this area.

Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Chairman, John Peeples stated that the addition of Roberts Irrigation to South Georgia will “ensure the continuation of agriculture in South Georgia and in the southeastern United States.”

“Valdosta and South Georgia are a great fit for our company because of what we do and how we do it,” Roberts said.

Mayor John J. Fretti stated, that with the Georgia’s No. 1 industry being agriculture, Roberts Irrigation is exactly where it needs to be, adding that the addition of Roberts Irrigation is a continuation of the area’s comprehensive approach to industry recruitment.

Brad Lofton, executive director of the Industrial Authority added, “This has been our fourth announcement in the past 12 months, and I can tell you from working in four other communities, that’s not common.”

Within three weeks, Roberts hopes to be bringing equipment into the facility and to have the entire operation up and running within a few months.

“We’re proud of it, and we’re going to turn this into a world class manufacturing facility that our company can be proud of and that this community can be proud of,” Roberts said.

Before settling on the greater Valdosta community, Roberts Irrigation considered a number of communities in the Southeast since it first acted on the idea of expansion in 2001. Roberts stated that a number of factors came together to make an attractive package that eventually brought the company to this area. Logistically speaking, Valdosta’s location on Interstate 75 and proximity to I-10 provide easy access to a number of different ports throughout the region including Jacksonville, Fla., Brunswick and Savannah.

Roberts also noted that the company was attracted by the community’s quality of life as a growing metropolitan statistical area, its business friendly atmosphere, low energy costs, growth of the current plastics industry in the region and the continued support received from the Industrial Authority, city and county officials, Georgia Power and the state.

The acquisition of Roberts Irrigation by John Deere, which occurred in June 2006, joined the already growing company focused on agricultural technology with the strongest brand in agriculture worldwide in an effort to accelerate the global business for both entities.

Michael McGrady, president of Deere Precision Water, stated that the new facility has been more of a homecoming for the company, which has served the area for more than 200 years after expanding into the region in 1858.

“The heart of this community is agriculture, and the heart of the state is its people,” McGrady said. “This has been a homecoming for us as I mentioned, but this time we’re not leaving.”