When David Laird and his team were named Contractor of the Year at the Scottish Agriculture Awards 2025, he admits he was completely taken aback.
“I’d never done anything like it before,” he said. “I was expecting a wee prize-giving, not the BAFTAs.”
After a lifetime spent in fields behind the wheel, the moment felt almost unreal, even if to those who know the industry it was richly deserved.
“Growing up I’ve always enjoyed tractors and machinery,” David said. “I didn’t really enjoy livestock - that was more my brother. The year I left school, my father bought a small combine.
“Dumfries House Farm wanted a hand, so I was sent along with the combine. I really enjoyed it. Then someone wanted some ploughing done, and I just wanted to carry on from there.”
His father, however, was far from convinced.
“All the time my dad was saying, ‘No, no, don’t get into that. It’s not a good job’,” David recalled.
Despite the warnings, he kept going. Every couple of years, the family upgraded machinery, moving steadily from smaller kit to bigger combines and David’s interest in contracting only grew. A year spent abroad would further shape his outlook.
“I went to New Zealand in 1974 for a year with a family I knew.
“I bought a tractor over there and did a bit of contracting. I worked alongside a huge Māori family, and we went round picking up bales. I really enjoyed it. I honestly wish I’d stayed longer.”
When he returned to Scotland, David felt ready to strike out on his own. In 1977, John D Laird Contracting was established.
From small beginnings
The early years were anything but easy.
“Getting anyone to believe in you was hard,” he said. “Bank managers weren’t interested.”
He recalls an old saying about sailing too close to the wind and admits he was the eye of the storm. Eventually, persistence paid off.
“We finally got a great bank manager, Eddie Cattell,” David said.
“He was brilliant. He understood exactly what we were trying to do. We had him for a good few years, and when he retired, I employed him. He came and worked in the office part-time.”
At that stage, there were only a handful of contractors locally and we were all competing against each other for the work.
Building a customer base meant being flexible and prepared to do whatever was needed.
“I would turn my hand to any work at the start, just to build the business,” David explained.
“I’ve always kept a book of virtually every machine I’ve bought, what I paid for it and what I sold it for.
“It’s incredible to look back. Tractors were around £10,000 back then, and the last quote we had was £212,000.
That book shows how the business grew, how machinery changed and how the work evolved.”
Picking the right gear
Brand loyalty was never part of the plan.
“I’ve never been loyal to one manufacturer. It’s whatever suits at the time. We mostly run John Deere and Fendt tractors, Claas harvesters, McHale balers and Slurryquip equipment. We even had a demo recently of a JCB Fastrac, and honestly I couldn’t fault it.
“I listen to the lads,” he explained. “Within reason, if they’re the ones sitting in it all day, they know what works. Happy operators look after machinery better and do a better job.
“We had a very good dealer early on, Jimmy Alston at Cumnock. He sold us Ford tractors and got me into the self-propelled forage harvesters and combines in the early days.”
Decisions about where and how far to work helped shape the business. “Only certain jobs do we travel for,” David said. “I don’t like going far for silage. It’s a team of eight or nine lads, and there’s too much downtime if they’re travelling 30 miles. But mixing slurry towers and lagoons is different. We will travel anywhere in the south of Scotland for that.”
From a one-man operation the business grew steadily. Today, David employs 11 full-time staff, rising to around 20 during peak season.
“I hate hiring new staff unless I know them,” he said. “One bad apple can ruin the barrel. Right now, I’ve got an absolutely ace team. Our longest-serving man is George McLachlan. He’s been with us for 48 years.”
The work itself remains varied.
“I enjoy most things,” David said. “It’s mostly combining, cutting grass and mixing slurry towers and lagoons for me though.”
Mixing innovation with experience
What truly sets the business apart is David’s approach to machinery and innovation.
Nearly 30 years ago, he designed and built his own tower mixer after realising there was nothing available that could do the job properly.
“A lot of farmers were putting up slurry towers and couldn’t mix them,” he explained.
“So I built something to do the job. I had the idea in my head. Nothing was put on paper. It needed plenty of modifications, but the first one lasted 20 years. The one we’ve got now is eight years old and perfect. You can’t buy it, although two or three folk have made similar.”
That same practical thinking led to the development of a self-propelled slurry tanker I built in 1988 with terra tyres designed to cope with winter ground conditions.
“I wanted to work every day through the winter, but you just couldn’t get on wet ground,” David said. “The softest part of any field is the gateway. I realised the spreader had to get into the field, and the tanker would haul to it and load the slurry over the hedge.
“We had Malgar tankers built with booms to haul the slurry to the spreader. The first time we ran it, it happened to be a market day. All the farmers saw it in the field, and I don’t think the phone stopped ringing that night.”
The self propelled tanker evolved over time.
“The first one was okay but not ideal,” he said. “We kept improving them. You couldn’t buy machines like that back then, so I was buying a chassis and cab and building it how I wanted. When farms got bigger, that style became less popular, so I sold it and moved into umbilical systems around 2005.”
Adaptation has been a constant throughout David’s career.
“The basics haven’t changed, but technology and electrics have come on massively,” he said. “The tractors we run now are top of the range. They make an old man look good, as long as you can set them up.”
The wider industry has changed just as dramatically.
“Small farmers are largely gone, and big farms are bigger,” David said. “There are fewer customers, but more work. Capable staff are hard to get, so farmers focus on milking and cattle and rely more on contractors. With machinery prices now, I wouldn’t like to be starting out.”
Customer expectations have shifted too.
“Some contractors in Ayrshire have given up, and there’s a bit of a shortage,” he explained. “Farmers are investing heavily in nutritional advice, and we have to stay flexible. One year they want short silage, the next year they want it longer.
“A few years ago, we added forage wagons alongside the silage choppers. We were covering about 4000 acres with them. When the recommendations changed, that dropped to around 1000 acres within a year, so we bought a second self-propelled chopper to keep customers happy.”
Winning Contractor of the Year was as much about the team as the man himself.
“It gave them a real boost, you could see how proud they were. The team includes family too. My wife Marion and my daughter Rhona have both been a huge part of the business. Rhona has worked here since she left school 15 years ago, although she originally wanted to drive a tractor rather than be in the office.”
At 71, David has no plans to slow down.
“I’m living the dream,” he laughed. “With the odd nightmare in between.”
Retirement, he says, will wait. “I’ll slow down when the big man calls me, or when I can’t pull myself up into a tractor.”
His advice to aspiring contractors is blunt.
“Do it the right way and start small and build it up, don’t undercut prices to get the jobs because that doesn’t pay.”
From a small combine on a family farm to award-winning business serving across the south of Scotland, David Laird’s career mirrors the progression of agriculture. Farms have changed, machinery has advanced and expectations have risen. Yet his approach remains unchanged.
“I’m extremely grateful for the staff I’ve got. They make all the difference,” he said. “Contracting has changed a lot since I started, but I’m proud we’ve kept pace with it, for ourselves and for the customers we serve.”
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