Bomber_Harris
Member
- Location
- London
nah more like Roy Batty imo The Terminator had the capability to affect the outcome, even to the point of going back in time
How many farmers have had a formal university education?
- Thread starter Bomber_Harris
- Start date
nah more like Roy Batty imo The Terminator had the capability to affect the outcome, even to the point of going back in time
Was @baabaa in ?
Yes. Singing away about King Billy and so on.
Lamping Dutch Gold cheap stuff like nobody’s business.
no idea who king billy is
heard of king dick he made spanners
Dick made spanners but Billy put a spanner in it.
GenuineRisk
Member
- Location
- Somerset
BSc (Hons) Business Adminstration Bath Uni getting topic back on track.
I don’t derive all my income from my farm if that’s what everyone considers being a farmer is but if being hands on, most of the day, dealing with our livestock is a an acceptable qualification, then yes!
I think perhaps there’s sometimes a degree of ‘chippiness’ regarding a University education, understandable considering the British psyche maybe. My personal take is that doing a degree or further education of any sort for three to five years, away from home, is not only about the actual subject matter of the course in question but also about being able to manage your time, learning to be independent, to interact with a raft of people you never met previously, to be able to research around your main subject and, presumably these days, to increase your IT knowledge considerably.
Some can’t do it no matter how bright they are. They get distracted, discouraged, simply don’t have the necessary basic tools to work through life problems and complete the job, some for genuine mental health reasons, others because they’re bone idle. Uni / college does a good job finding this out. Back in the day, when I went, a mere 6% of 18yos went to a university to do a degree, this being the day of polytechs and colleges who couldn’t offer degree courses. Now they all do. It’s led to the current problem of a general inability to stick things out and for young people to be constantly distracted and unable to concentrate by the social tech at their disposal and the fact if they do t like their choice, they can just give up and try something else without any comeback.
Farmers who don’t have a degree education aren’t any ‘less’, they just have chosen to stick with what they know and usually love and thank heavens for that ! Farmimg kids who go to uni/college and return to farming or become farmers are also not to be disparaged because sometimes it’s good to be able to be more objective having had a different life experience before coming home to farm. Their parents should welcome their inputs - as long as a degree of tsct is employed but usually not a youthful virtue!
I don’t derive all my income from my farm if that’s what everyone considers being a farmer is but if being hands on, most of the day, dealing with our livestock is a an acceptable qualification, then yes!
I think perhaps there’s sometimes a degree of ‘chippiness’ regarding a University education, understandable considering the British psyche maybe. My personal take is that doing a degree or further education of any sort for three to five years, away from home, is not only about the actual subject matter of the course in question but also about being able to manage your time, learning to be independent, to interact with a raft of people you never met previously, to be able to research around your main subject and, presumably these days, to increase your IT knowledge considerably.
Some can’t do it no matter how bright they are. They get distracted, discouraged, simply don’t have the necessary basic tools to work through life problems and complete the job, some for genuine mental health reasons, others because they’re bone idle. Uni / college does a good job finding this out. Back in the day, when I went, a mere 6% of 18yos went to a university to do a degree, this being the day of polytechs and colleges who couldn’t offer degree courses. Now they all do. It’s led to the current problem of a general inability to stick things out and for young people to be constantly distracted and unable to concentrate by the social tech at their disposal and the fact if they do t like their choice, they can just give up and try something else without any comeback.
Farmers who don’t have a degree education aren’t any ‘less’, they just have chosen to stick with what they know and usually love and thank heavens for that ! Farmimg kids who go to uni/college and return to farming or become farmers are also not to be disparaged because sometimes it’s good to be able to be more objective having had a different life experience before coming home to farm. Their parents should welcome their inputs - as long as a degree of tsct is employed but usually not a youthful virtue!
Bomber_Harris
Member
- Location
- London
spot on in every regard imo
TelesnaAg
Member
- Location
- Portland, Victoria - Australia
I am highly uneducated.
Ant...
Ant...
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Around here I would think 60% have. Must be a Welsh thing.
BSc in agriculture in my day was very broadly based. The normal subjects such as crop production and animal husbandry were taught in detail but these were enhanced by a strong grounding in geology, soil; science, veterinary science, accounting and management, biochemistry and practical extensions to subjects taken at A level.. Many who did not become farmers needed these skills in associated agricultural research and advisory work and many went on to further degrees and drove innovation in the industry all around the world.
Wye College, London University was closed around 2008 due to government disinterest in agriculture and food security and their attitude towards globalisation . The potential prize was the 700 acre farm near to the entrance of the channel tunnel.They were going to develop the lot for industrial multi use and housing .The loss was the best farm business and management research centre in the UK if not in the world, besides providing excellent education and supporting some of the UKs leading research into niche crops such as hops.
Fortunately the subterfuge and dirty dealing involved in the potential development was thwarted by a most well organised and energetic group who opposed the land grab and development. I am not always in favour of nimbies but this lot were heroes.
Wye College, London University was closed around 2008 due to government disinterest in agriculture and food security and their attitude towards globalisation . The potential prize was the 700 acre farm near to the entrance of the channel tunnel.They were going to develop the lot for industrial multi use and housing .The loss was the best farm business and management research centre in the UK if not in the world, besides providing excellent education and supporting some of the UKs leading research into niche crops such as hops.
Fortunately the subterfuge and dirty dealing involved in the potential development was thwarted by a most well organised and energetic group who opposed the land grab and development. I am not always in favour of nimbies but this lot were heroes.
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- Location
- Northern Ireland
My course sounds very similar to yours. We did all sorts. Remember sitting in with medical students in the first term doing the lovely Krebs cycle etc. Was a fantastic course looking back on it. Even the most hated module of statistical analysis has changed how I look at results I read today.
It was taught mostly in the city of Belfast at Queen's school of agriculture and food science, where the lecturers and professors pursued their research at the labs there. But we spent a fair bit of class time outside the city at the research farm at Hillsborough, now known as AFBI https://www.afbini.gov.uk where the work seems to be ongoing. It supports lots of PhD's. We also drove all over northern Ireland learning about mushroom production, apples in Armagh, rocks and soils, pollution, biomass, plant breeding, and so on.
However, by the mid noughties, numbers enrolling in the course I took had fallen to an all-time low of about five per year in the general course, from 25 in my class just a handful of years earlier. Livestock farming, courtesy of BSE and then F&M, had had a rough time, and the powers at Queen's, in their wisdom, thought this was the end of agriculture. They closed the teaching school down, and replaced it with what one local undergrad recently described to me as a course designed to make environment and clipboard warriors to police the farming industry. Most of the intake is, in contrast, from the city. Apparently they think farmers are thick, bad for the environment, and relished the idea of teaching them some lessons. Great.
Was a fantastic course looking back on it. Even the most hated module of statistical analysis has changed how I look at results I read today. It was taught mostly in the city of Belfast at Queen's school of agriculture and food science, where the lecturers and professors pursued their research at the labs there. But we spent a fair bit of class time outside the city at the research farm at Hillsborough, now known as AFBI https://www.afbini.gov.uk where the work seems to be ongoing. It supports lots of PhD's. We also drove all over northern Ireland learning about mushroom production, apples in Armagh, rocks and soils, pollution, biomass, plant breeding, and so on.
However, by the mid noughties, numbers enrolling in the course I took had fallen to an all-time low of about five per year in the general course, from 25 in my class just a handful of years earlier. Livestock farming, courtesy of BSE and then F&M, had had a rough time, and the powers at Queen's, in their wisdom, thought this was the end of agriculture. They closed the teaching school down, and replaced it with what one local undergrad recently described to me as a course designed to make environment and clipboard warriors to police the farming industry. Most of the intake is, in contrast, from the city. Apparently they think farmers are thick, bad for the environment, and relished the idea of teaching them some lessons. Great.
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
I suspect the Farming University you drove past on your way to Cheltenham is the Royal Agricultural University at Cirencester.
It used to be called and will always be so in my mind, The Royal Agricultural College. There were 120 of us there between 1977 and 1979 doing the College’s own version of an OND course, especially designed for those from a farming background, called the RAC College Diploma in Agriculture.
I learned a hell of a lot and still base how I farm now along the principles it taught me.
On day one, I heard of something called the ICI 10 tonne club, which at that time was a yield that was almost 3 times what the national average yield was then. I was hooked!
As regards technical farming it was brilliant. But what it specialised in most, was the business of farming, which is far more important than the activity of physical farming. Half of the entire course was devoted to management in all its forms, from Law, accountancy, banking, investment to Labour relations.
Very cleverly, everything was taught in the lecture rooms, rather than asking students to go away and research a subject for themselves, like all universities do today. There was a hell of a lot to learn and this way was the fastest way to do it. Very few lectures were boring and therefore very few were missed.
Also on day one, while walking round the College, I bumped into the then Principal, Sir Emrys Jones. He told me I would enjoy my time there, but I’d probably learn more about farming from the practical farming experience I already had. He was only partially right. What I learned was the tricks involved to hone those skills to do them the best way possible. But then to take the business skills it taught me to take maximum advantage of them.
The inspiration it gave me transformed me into the person I became.
Then there were all the other things in life that it taught us too.......!
I suspect that you @Bomber_Harris, not being from a farming background, are surprised to realise that most farmers have further education, many in agriculture, but not necessarily so. I would say that at least 75% of my colleagues and farming friends do.
Worryingly, if your under the opinion that most don’t, no wonder so many of the public still regard us as country bumpkins with very limited skills. Come and spend one day with me and you might have the shock of your life!
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- Location
- Ceredigion
It would be interesting to see how many who went to uni own their own farms compared to us thickos
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Do you really mean “own”?
Or might you mean Inherited?
How many bought all of their own farm?
Not many I suspect.
Let’s not forget renting or next generation renting.
Or Contract farming.
A Uni/college education doesn’t necessarily help in achieving any of the above.
But it most certainly can help.
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Wye college was going the same way in the end. One of my daughters was offered a place there to study agriculture and I went with her to attend her interview. That would be about 1992 and they were starting to run out of pure ag students then. She turned the place down and went to Writtle College which had started to offer equine courses and another thing called RRD, Rural Research and Development, otherwise known as right royal dossers by fellow students..My course sounds very similar to yours. We did all sorts. Remember sitting in with medical students in the first term doing the lovely Krebs cycle etc.
It was taught mostly in the city of Belfast at Queen's school of agriculture and food science, where the lecturers and professors pursued their research at the labs there. But we spent a fair bit of class time outside the city at the research farm at Hillsborough, now known as AFBI https://www.afbini.gov.uk where the work seems to be ongoing. It supports lots of PhD's. We also drove all over northern Ireland learning about mushroom production, apples in Armagh, rocks and soils, pollution, biomass, plant breeding, and so on.
However, by the mid noughties, numbers enrolling in the course I took had fallen to an all-time low of about five per year in the general course, from 25 in my class just a handful of years earlier. Livestock farming, courtesy of BSE and then F&M, had had a rough time, and the powers at Queen's, in their wisdom, thought this was the end of agriculture. They closed the teaching school down, and replaced it with what one local undergrad recently described to me as a course designed to make environment and clipboard warriors to police the farming industry. Most of the intake is, in contrast, from the city. Apparently they think farmers are thick, bad for the environment, and relished the idea of teaching them some lessons. Great.
The fact that student numbers fell was partly due to the state of agriculture at the time and partly due to government policy. The colleges started to install all sorts of appealing useless courses to save their very existence. The courses were badly structured and the curriculum was updated on a daily basis as nobody had a clue what they were trying to achieve.
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Interesting. I had a Deer Assurance scheme inspection here yesterday. We need this to be able to supply Waitrose their venison.
Deer farming stockmanship is not difficult. I had none until I came here, but I had a background of Dairy and Beef. Transposing that to Deer farming was easy.
Most of what the examiner wanted to see is all common sense to any Livestock farming. But I mentioned that to virtually all Livestock farmers and workers, those skills come naturally in just the same way as a gun dog often inherits it’s skill from breeding. Without that inherited natural husbandry, I wonder how easy it would be for those complete outsiders to grasp. Far from impossible I’m sure. A Uni/college education would be very helpful here though.
The same applies to all farming not just Livestock.
What I believe a Uni/college education in Agriculture can add to both those from its background and those who aren’t, is the inspiration to learn how to do it better and manage risk better.
What annoys me is that most kids see any Uni course as normal. So many of those courses are irrelevant and pointless other than reducing the unemployment figure, while the students make up their minds as to what they want to do afterwards.
However, I don’t think anybody doing any Agrcultural course would do so, unless they want a career in it.
BTW, Waitrose were doing a Valentines offer for £20 for 2, being starter, beef or venison steak, pudding and a bottle of Prosecco. If you enjoyed the venison version, it was probably from this farm. (Bugger! I hope you did enjoy it!)
We had some here and thought it was very good, anyway!
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The one thing you learn above all else is how to learn and how to obtain knowledge to fill the gaps in your own. There were no computers in those days and even adding machines were hand crank so knowledge was largely obtained from books. I still have all my old books, some third or fourth hand.
- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
We were encouraged to buy all sorts of books. The only one anybody really needed was the John Nix pocket book. Everything else was taught to us in the lecture rooms.
I remember seeing the first desk top computer at the college. Windows hadn’t even started by then and wouldn’t do so for another 15 years. I think it cost £15k too!