3 minute read
Staff Spotlight Keira Sannachan
Agricultural Consultant
Specialist expertise
• IACS work and grant applications
• Livestock systems
• Carbon auditing and mitigation measures
• Business planning and budgeting
What was your career journey into this role?
After graduating from SRUC Edinburgh with an honours degree in Agriculture, I spent a year relief milking on a local dairy farm while searching for a full-time industry role. This led me to SRUC’s Crichton Royal Farm, where I worked as a research technician for two years. The position provided invaluable insight into the dairy industry and gave me the opportunity to work on fascinating research projects. However, when a consultancy role opened up nearer home at SAC Consulting’s Lanark office two years ago, applying felt like a natural next step to continue my personal development and push myself further.
Why did you come to work at SAC Consulting?
SAC Consulting is renowned for its independent, expert advice and respected advisors across the country. I wanted to be part of this forward-thinking team, delivering robust, evidence-based recommendations that can make a real difference to clients.
If you could do anyone else’s job here, who would it be, what is their role and why?
I would be quite interested in taking on a role in the veterinary services team. The veterinary investigation officers do some incredible work in various areas such as pathology and histopathology. The state-of-the-art labs allow for a wide variety of tests to be conducted and there’s often interesting projects investigating disease syndromes which could impact herds or flocks on a wide scale.
The vet services team also manage the premium health schemes for cattle and sheep and can help farmers with dynamic health planning which can make a real difference to the health, welfare, and production efficiency of livestock on farm.
What work (in your current role) are you most proud of and why?
I am most proud of being able to help some of our dairy clients manage the required audits for their milk contract. It can often be a sizeable piece of work and due to the time constraints of running the business, some clients were looking for help with completing the audits, whilst others were looking for help polishing what they already had, being able to take some of the weight off their shoulders can be really quite rewarding! After being asked by a few clients for help it allowed me to bring a small group of farmers together to talk, and work through it together whilst opening an avenue for conversation between them all.
If you had one wish, to be used to better the industry, what would you wish for?
If I could wish for one improvement, it would be for food security to be properly recognised and rewarded in future agricultural support schemes. While environmental priorities such as carbon auditing, biodiversity, and climate change mitigation are essential, the growing population means food security must remain a central pillar of agricultural policy.
