With the death last weekend of Maitland Mackie, whose funeral took place yesterday on the family farm of Westertown, Rothienorman, the farming industry has lost arguably the “best leader it never had”.
His often controversial views were perhaps just too radical for the bulk of the membership of NFU Scotland and he lost out to his fellow vice-president, John Ross, when standing for the union presidency in 1990.
He made an immense contribution to the industry during his time as a vice-president and was influential in developing a shift in union policy from a purely political role towards market oriented self-help policies.
His legacy will be the implementation of farm assurance which he drove through despite the scepticism of many farmers who thought it imposed an unnecessary burden on the industry.
Today, farm assurance has become the keystone in promoting much of Scotland’s agricultural output under the Scotch brand, providing consumers with assurances on animal welfare and livestock husbandry.
Maitland was the architect of farm assurance, firstly as founder of the Scottish Pig Industry Initiative – for which he received the David Black Award in 1991 – and as chairman of Farm Assured Scotch Livestock, pioneering the concept of best practice and self-discipline under farm assurance in the red meat sector.
But perhaps his greatest contribution was away from the public eye serving on a host of scientific committees where his keen intellect, foresight and understanding of complex scientific issues could be harnessed to the full.
He completed two five-year terms on the Agriculture Food Research Council from 1980 to 1991, chairing both its food and animal committees and also served as chairman of the Priorities Board for Research in Agriculture, where he chaired the monogastric group.
He was also a member of the research committee of the Meat and Livestock Commission and a governor of the Rowett Research Institute.
As chairman of the board of the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), he was credited along with Ian Ivory of putting the college on a more commercial footing at a time when the college could well have gone bust with a complacent management who assumed the Scottish Government would continue to underwrite losses.
In the business world, his many appointments included a non-executive directorship with Lloyds TSB Scotland and the chairmanship of Scottish Enterprise Grampian. He was also a member of the Court of the University of Aberdeen and rector of the university at the time of his death.
All the time he continued to develop his own 1,700-acre farming business at Westertown, which over the years has often been the test bed for pioneering developments in the industry. He was immensely proud of the way his son, Mac, as managing director, and daughters, Karin as marketing director, and Kirstin, as development director, have developed an initiative he started 30 years ago to utilise surplus cream and taken the Mackies business from a purely farming, dairying and milk retail operation to the £10million market-leading ice-cream business which it is today.
He continued as chairman in recent years but disciplined himself not to interfere in day-to-day management which he claimed to adhere to most of the time.
The farm is now managed under a contract farming arrangement with a near neighbour to allow the family to concentrate on further developing the ice-cream business and the highly successful move into crisps in partnership with the Taylor family of Taypack at Inchture.
Sadly, Maitland has not lived to see the third strand of the now internationally known Mackies brand with the launch at the Royal Highland Show in two weeks’ time of a range of chocolate products.
In recent years, Maitland has been a strong proponent of wind energy following the erection of three wind turbines at Westertown which he was happy to admit proved the best investment he ever made. His championing of wind energy did not endear him to the anti-wind energy lobby.
He was vocal in urging communities to invest in wind energy rather than leaving the international energy companies to cream off the profits and, although an opponent politically, was invited by First Minister, Alex Salmond, to join the Scottish Government’s Community Renewable Implementation Group to pursue the “maximum ownership by the rural sector of the renewable power potential of its land and vistas.”
His self-deprecating humour was an endearing characteristic and his focus on the big picture sometimes left some of the detail of day-to-day life to be overlooked. An audit of the Mackie’s fleet of vehicles a few years ago found one car to be missing. It eventually came to light a few weeks later that Maitland had left the car at Aberdeen Airport but returned by train, forgetting all about the car. A hefty parking charge secured its release!
Maitland was buried yesterday beside his beloved Norwegian-born wife, Halldis, a retired family doctor, who died only three months ago, in the lovely arboretum at Westertown which Halldis lovingly created over many years with tree species from all over the world. It is fitting resting place on the farm which has been their home throughout their married life and where the Mackie dynasty is set to grow and prosper in the years to come.