The MacRobert Trust

Having been born and raised in South Oxfordshire I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d have moved to the Southern Uplands of Galloway to become a forest manager for the start of my career. It was through...

I was brought up on a beef and sheep farm on the Isle of Arran based on the islands only volcano, Ard Bhienn!  The enterprise comprised of about 630 breeding ewes with the full

Stratification system...

I grew up in the North East of Scotland. Although not from a farm, I have always had a passion for the agricultural industry, with key interests in the arable and poultry sectors. After studying...

I grew up in South West Scotland and come from a non agricultural background. After spells working in the USA and the Middle East I returned home.

I am a partner in the family farming business operating mixed enterprises of beef cattle, sheep, cereals and forestry, in Caithness on the northern coast of Scotland. I am a staunch advocate of young...

I’m a policy and intervention design specialist with over 20 years of experience working across food systems, public policy, and social change. Over the past decade, I’ve focused on food system transformation, particularly how policy processes shape and are shaped by the people working within them. I work as a doctoral researcher at the Division of Global Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Edinburgh. My research examines the key barriers, levers and incentives to food procurement to embed sustainable farming and consumption practices. I also teach on a number of postgraduate courses, including Food Policy, Making Science Relevant to Policy and Decision Making (which I currently lead), and guest lecture on Communicating with Policy Makers During Crises, which is part of the One Health risk communication and preparedness course. My work is grounded in a systems view of agri-food transformation. I seek to understand how people, policies, practices, and paradigms interact across supply chains, institutions, and communities of practice. I’m especially interested in how change happens in complex systems and how to create more inclusive, adaptive, and evidence-informed approaches to governance. Before moving into academia, I spent several years as Executive Director at Soil Association. There, I led complex change programmes that supported farmer-led innovation and helped embed healthier, more sustainable food in public sector settings. My work across the public and third sectors has focused on evidence-informed policymaking, strategic communications, social policy research, and systems change. I hold an MSc in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics, a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Studies, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Gastronomy and am currently undertaking a PhD in Agriculture and Food Systems. Throughout my career, I’ve been motivated by the belief that good policy isn’t just about good evidence, it is fundamentally about people, participation and power in all its forms.

I grew up on a dairy farm in the Scottish Borders and have always been driven to find information and solutions to agricultural challenges. The agricultural industry has so much potential and I am constantly inspired by the ability of farmers, their persistence and commitment to survive change, this is why I enjoy working in the industry.

I grew up in Peebles, a small town in the Scottish Borders. From an early age I developed a strong interest in farming and after studying for a degree in Business Management with Marketing, I started a career in agriculture. For the past 10 years I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working in the egg industry both in egg production and sales of day old chicks.