As a child brought up on a dairy farm, Tim Mackle was adamant that he wanted to be a farmer.

But while doing an ag science degree at Lincoln University he got ‘distracted’ by the science and ended up as a leader in the dairy industry.

That in a sense is the executive summary of the life of Mackle, DairyNZ chief executive, who leaves the job in a few weeks but still plans to stay involved in the agri sector.

“The agri sector is my passion and that’s where I want to be going forward,” he told Dairy News.

Mackle was born on a dairy farm in Kaikoura which his brother now farms. But while Mackle’s ambitions have changed from being a farmer to being passionate about the science of food production, he’s never lost his love for the dairy sector. After completing an ag science degree at Lincoln he worked at MSD Agvet and then at Ruakura with some of the country’s top ag scientists, Arnold Bryant and Jock McMillan at the Dairy Research Centre (DRC).

But this was something of a holding pattern. His ambition was to do a PhD overseas and before long he obtained a scholarship to prestigious Ivy League Cornell University in New York state where he and his wife both studied. During his time there he won an award for the top PhD in the US.

After completing his PhD in Animal, Food and Nutritional Sciences, Mackle and his wife returned to New Zealand and DRC before moving on to the Dairy Board in Wellington, then to newly-formed Fonterra, working closely with then-chief executive, the late Craig Norgate.

While there he took on the role of general manager of Fonterra subsidiary Anchor Ethanol. Later he was appointed CEO of Dexcel, the research arm of the dairy industry, which in 2007 merged with Dairy InSight to form DairyNZ. He has been chief executive since then.

Mackle says the highlight of his career has been working with some brilliant trade people and leaders in the dairy industry; People such as Arnold Bryant, Dale Bowman, the late Craig Norgate, the late John Luxton, the late Michael Spaans, and Jim van der Poel. He says he’s very proud of the team at DairyNZ which does a lot of good work on behalf of the farmers of NZ.

“The industry good organisation is important for our sector. It is right that industry good investment is scrutinised very well, particularly by farmers, and we should always be held to account by that. At the same time, you have got to find ways to make it work and ensure that value is being taken up by farmers,” he says.

As to the future, Mackle says the dairy sector faces some big challenges, especially in terms of communication. He says because people are so digitally connected with the world it is harder to secure their attention and time.

“When I reflect on the discussion groups that I went along to as a kid on the family farm with my dad and my brother, things were standard and far simpler. But we are living and farming in a much more complex world which actually makes it more challenging to get people’s attention and actually cement relationships. This is because you are competing for their time and other perspectives that are being shared at more rapid rate,” he says.

Given the complexities of that challenge Mackle says it’s more important than ever to embrace the collective and cooperative spirit that has underpinned the dairy industry since its inception. Mackle says NZ is a great food producer and it has got to keep on enhancing the story about just how good it is.

As for his own future post June 30, Mackle has not revealed any plans beyond saying he wants to remain in the agri sector in some capacity.