Meet the team: David McKay

Each month, E-News will introduce you to a member of our Soil Association Scotland and Food for Life Scotland teams. This month, Head of Policy David McKay shares what life is like working in policy in food and farming around Scotland.

Q1. What is your name and your job title?

DM: My name is David McKay and I am the co-director of Soil Association Scotland (alongside Sarah Duley) and Head of Policy in Scotland.

Q2. When did you join Soil Association Scotland?

DM: I joined in May 2021 as Head of Policy and at the time, the Soil Association didn’t have this kind of dedicated policy role in Scotland, so it was new territory for us. I first worked under Jo Lewis from the UK policy team in Bristol. I lead on the research, development and advocacy of Soil Association positions on food, farming and land use in relation to Scotland.

We’re a small organisation, so you must be quite nimble and good at prioritising those key issues and relationships. You learn as you go and for me, that was remembering not to feel like I always had to cover everything – there’s an awful lot that happens in Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament related to food, farming and wider land use.

Another big lesson was the value of working in collaboration with other organisations. For example, through Scottish Environment LINK and the Scottish Food Coalition, we were able to amplify some of our key messages and have more impact that way.

Before the Good Food Nation Act was passed in 2022, which was a year after I had started at Soil Association, we did a lot of work with partner organisations to try and improve the bill, because it there were a lot of gaps when it was first introduced. A big win on that was the establishment of the Scottish Food Commission that has the potential to be quite significant and have a big impact in terms of food system change that we want to see.

We also managed to get the government to commit to developing an Organic Action Plan, which wasn’t on the SNP 2021 manifesto, but they did have a commitment to doubling organic land.

Q3. What is one of your favourite things about working at Soil Association? 

DM: I would have to say the team. Everyone who comes to work for Soil Association comes for a reason, so there are shared values and shared objectives that we’re all working towards. I think there is a really good camaraderie amongst the team in Edinburgh and in Bristol, which is nice.

One of the strengths of the organisation is people tend to stick around. One person, who I won’t name, has come back multiple times after leaving, so that probably says something positive about Soil Association!

Q4. Discuss your journey with sustainability/the environment. Why is this important to you?  

DM: I have something of a career change as my background was in journalism and then political and strategic comms. I had reached the point where I wanted to do something different. My wife and I had bought a house up in the North East of Scotland, near Banff, which is about seven acres of land. It may sound cheesy, but we wanted to live a bit closer to nature.

We planted almost 2,000 trees, and we took the land through organic certification, growing veg and fruit which we sell locally on a really small scale. I did a masters in Organic Farming SRUC as a distance learning course on evenings and weekends, Then, I found my way to Soil Association, so it feels like a really good fit for me. And I’m really enjoying it!

Q5. Can you walk us through a week in your life? 

DM: There are no two days that are the same, which is part of the reason why it’s a good place to work. We cover a lot at Soil Association from food policy to farming, forestry and aquaculture as well.

On an average week, parliament is sitting Tuesday to Thursday. Often on a Monday, we might be preparing for meetings with civil servants or ministers and MSPs later in the week. We will be responding to government consultations or preparing briefing documents for MSPs on particular issues. The rest of the week, we will be having internal meetings as well as external meetings with people like Scottish Environment LINK or the Food Coalition, for example. We’re trying to keep abreast of what is happening, both in parliament and out.

There’s also a constant stream of academic papers and policy reports from other organisations and publications, so we’re up to date and aware of what’s happening in our different sectors. It’s quite difficult to fit it all in a week and it’s something I think people may not be aware of how much time we spend researching and preparing. As great as it would be to swan in and wing it, you have to do your homework and plan out what you’re going to say.

Q6. What is your favourite dish to cook?  

DM: I really like to make squash and chickpea curry, so I’m at the right time of year. There’s no set recipe, I’ve fallen into my own version of it of making up a spice mix or paste and go from there. But always trying to make it as fresh as possible.

That might be a squash that we’ve grown ourselves. I also put kale or cavolo nero in that we’ve grown ourselves, and the onions and garlic are from home as well. It’s good to be cooking with ingredients that we’ve grown here. The kids don’t like it very much, but I enjoy it!

Q7. What is a recipe book you always go back to, and why?  

DM: I’ve got loads of cookbooks, but the ones I have probably used the most have been Rick Stein books. He has a really good one on fish that I use a ton of recipes from, and he’s got a really good Indian one with lots of good curry recipes which I like.

Q8. What do you do to relax? 

DM: There’s a couple of things I find really relaxing – being outside in the vegetable plots I find really calming, including weeding bizarrely. My wife is a yoga teacher, so I do that to relax too. But I think my favourite thing to do to let off steam is to play the drums. I started when I was ten-years-old, which was a long time now, but if I had to choose one thing, it would be that. Playing the drums is my favourite.

My favourite drummers are probably Keith Moon from The Who or John Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin. I’m a big fan of his. The Stone Roses were really big when I was growing up, so their drummer Reni was also a big influence on me.

Q9. What is a podcast or album you’re listening to right now?

DM: I listen to loads of podcasts that people might find them dull, but I don’t. Political podcasts or regenerative farming podcasts. Ffinlo Costain does a great podcast called Farm Gate which is about regenerative farming and Phil Carson from Nature Friendly Farming Network.

Q10. What one thing do you want people to know about your job? 

DM: Probably the idea that I spend my time schmoozing and hobnobbing around Scottish Parliament when my role is a lot of reading academic papers, looking at evidence, writing long briefings and responding to consultations, There’s a lot more legwork that goes into the policy role at Soil Association than just chatting with MSPs!