Rory Christie, partner in The Dourie Farming Company Ltd, a milk and pork-producing business, has been fundamental in the creation of this future-fit agribusiness. Creating impact widely across the sector through thought-leadership and by the opportunities created on the farm, he is the vice-Chairman of the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS), which is at the forefront of producer co-operation. The business drives best practice in soil health, cow health and welfare and genetics - Rory is a founding member of the collaborative fast-breeders programme, which looks to optimise cow performance and create a low-methane cow.
Rory founded the co-operative The Milk Suppliers Association (MSA), which represents farmers supplying Lactalis in Scotland. It is a positive story of farmers working together to tackle the problem of insufficient business returns. When MSA was founded everyone in the supply chain was hugely sceptical. There was no trust between farmers and processors and they have had to build this up. MSA acknowledges that many parts of the milk supply chain – including buyers – are under pressure and tries to find solutions to help dairy farm businesses survive. www.msa.scot.
Overcoming huge financial challenges in the 1990's, resulted in a successful succession to keep the family business together. Over the last ten years they made the bold decision to buy out any remaining shareholders and invest in a state-of-the-art pig unit and dairy in order to drive productivity. Dourie Farming own approximately 75% of the land they farm and rent around 25% from the Maxwell family of Monreith with whom they have a good relationship.
The farm continues to employ 12 full-time equivalent staff and are helping the local community by bringing new people to the area, and by continuing to employ people through a strong, local business. They try to use local traders and contractors wherever possible and also provide placements for agricultural and vet students. In addition to this, Rory is also building close, working relationships within Scotland's Rural College. The fast-breeders programme is using Rory’s dairy herd as a commercial extension for applied research so that work goes directly from research into real-time farming practice.
Rory acts as a catalyst within the MSA, which provides essential employment at the factory in Stranraer. The Caledonian Cheese Company, which buys in more than £80m worth of milk from the MSA goes directly into around 115 MSA farm businesses and the community. The importance of dairy farming to Dumfries & Galloway and Wigtownshire cannot be underestimated. MSA members are also now participating in the Piloting an Outcomes-Based Approach project (POBAS) with Nature Scot, which seeks to demonstrate how a results-based approach to agri-environment schemes can work across Scotland. There is a huge knowledge-transfer component to this: dairy farmers are helping government understand how much they know about biodiversity and improving their own knowledge and practices as well.
As vice-Chairman of SAOS Rory is working to ensure good governance of the organisation and its subsidiary businesses, such as Food Integrity Assurance. SAOS is in a state of growth and change and Rory’s priority is to ensure that it provides the maximum benefit for co-op members, that it facilitates the creation of more successful co-ops and that it gets the supply chain working so that it can provide its own solutions rather than waiting for external forces, notably government, to sort it.