Agri Awards: Craig Bothwell winner of Adviser of the Year

Advising wasn’t always the end goal for Craig, however. Having graduated from SRUC in 2014, he spent his summer working on the family farm.

“I studied agriculture at SRUC from 2010 to 2014, and after graduating I spent the summer working at home. I applied for the role at SAC consulting when they needed a trainee in their Edinburgh office and by February 2015, I was working there full-time,” he told The Scottish Farmer.

Craig Bothwell has been with SAC Consulting since February 2015 Craig grew up in Lanarkshire on his family’s beef farm, currently a 300-acre upland unit that is home to a herd of 70 commercial suckler cows, put to the Charolais bull. With consulting taking up most of his time, his parents are still at the helm on the farm, breeding calves for the store market and selling them at 10-12 months old, averaging 450kg. For Craig, most weekends and nights are spent on the farm getting involved in practical farming.

For his primary work, Craig is based out of the Edinburgh office of SAC Consulting but is often out and about on farm visits and assisting agricultural businesses.

Craig loves to get out and about speaking with farmers firsthand “I have a keen interest in beef systems as that was what I was brought up on but I cover a range of different aspects. I also particularly like working on feed and rationing systems, fixing up nutrient plans to save farmers money, and I quite like numbers so the margins and figures really interest me.”

Craig’s keen eye for detail helped him when he started with the company initially.

“It was when the new farm payments system was being introduced so much of my first few months were having to figure out the new computer system. We would be doing IACS forms until 10pm at night to beat the backlog in 2015,” Craig recalls.

“As a trainee, I was taken under the wing of Mary-Jane Lawrie and Chris McDonald and I am very grateful for everything they taught me. When I took the role, I really didn’t know much about consulting so I wasn’t very sure if it was the right thing for me. Both Chris and Mary-Jane trained me up and looked after me so it’s so important to me that I get to do that for the newer generations coming up.”

Craig spends his weekends working on the Family farm in Lanarkshire As part of SAC Consulting, Craig’s worklife takes many forms. “We do everything we can to help farmers, whether that’s running discussion and benchmarking groups, subsidy assistance, and giving all forms of financial and business advice.”

Another thing that Craig likes about his job is the ability to get out and about. His work allows for on-farm visits to help farmers to get the most out of their businesses.

He explained: “I am very practical, I like getting out of the office to see new set-ups and systems. You learn from it just as much as they might learn from you in all honesty.

“My work is extremely rewarding – being able to find a solution and seeing farmers overcome a problem and thus making a positive impact on their business is what the job is all about. Sometimes it can be as simple as cattle not growing on rations and then we have the resources to test a sample of the silage and find what nutrition is missing to find a solution.”

Craig also values the importance of checking in with his clients even when his services aren’t required.

“It’s so important to take time to visit and chat with farmers since mental health is such a core issue in the agricultural community. It’s a lonely business and when you can be that one person who picks up the phone and calls them up or goes to see them it can really make their week. It’s something we can all do just to check in on one another to see people are doing.”

In Craig’s eyes it is also down to the wealth of knowledge from the team at SAC Consulting that really helps the workload.

“Everyone looks out for each other and we really have strength in the team here and share a lot of ideas. We do a lot of business appraisals as consultants so we have the time to get to know businesses really well to make the most informed decisions. We do a lot of subsidy applications and farmers like the comfort of knowing we do them day in, day out – and we know our stuff.

“We get around 170 farmers into the office in an eight-week period. We get the information we need from the farmers and get the applications off in a timely manner. We have a loyal customer base and have been assisting farmers with this for decades.”

Currently the biggest issue facing SAC Consulting is securing the next generation of advisers and consultants on the team.

“We find it hard to get new members on the team and we can have experienced consultants leave for various reasons,” Craig said. “It’s often a case of people wanting to move on to a different place in their lives but it means we need to focus on getting the next generation of talent in and training them up.

“Moving forward, it’s definitely more about developing our own workforce and encouraging youngsters to consider it as a career. I really didn’t know what this job would entail so that’s why we run student placements and I do a bit of lecturing to SRUC students. This job can offer such a good path for career progression. I was taken on as a trainee and now I am the manager of the Edinburgh office,” Craig pointed out.

“It’s the same as what we are seeing in farming businesses with the average age of farmers rising. It’s important that we include youngsters in all aspects of agricultural business so that it makes the transition easier to the next generation.”

For now, Craig has had a pretty stellar 2024, after becoming manager and getting married. His Scottish Agriculture Award is the cherry on the cake.

“This year has certainly been memorable. I have been genuinely so lucky and so proud to achieve everything I have. I really wasn’t expecting the nomination for Adviser of the Year let alone winning. I was fortunate to be put forward by some of my clients so to make the shortlist really felt like such an honour.”

Craig was joined by some of those clients and members of his team at SAC on awards night. However, none were more awestruck than Craig when his name was read out.

“It was genuinely a super night that was so well organised. It was my first time attending and it has been a whirlwind since being shortlisted and then winning. My thanks have to go out to my brilliant clients and all the team at SAC Consulting – I could not have done any of it without them.”

Looking to the future, Craig hopes to continue his work helping farmers and developing future consultants for his team.

“I am very content in my role and my priority will always be aiding farmers in any changes that will come. I am just one person, my capacity is limited, so helping to train up the next generation of consultants and getting diversity across the team will only help us in the long run. In my eyes, I have one of the best jobs in the industry and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”