How many farmers have had a formal university education?

[The Agrarian]

Of course there should never be any suggestion made that farmers without a university degree are not capable business people in their own right. After all - the proof is in the pudding.

But if a student shows academic potential, then it's only right to provide the space for that to be nurtured. We shouldn't scoff at the pursuit of excellence. A deeper understanding of science, business and law, welfare and ethics, is easily carried.

Important also to think beyond the farm boundary. Our industry needs representatives who are well equiped for the work of defending our interests. For example, isnt it all to the good if the farmers representing us in the matter of antibiotic use in livestock, have both practical experience and the scientific background to be able to make effective arguments and confront falsehoods?

 

[arcobob]

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!

John is was my economics tutor at Wye. I remember writing an essay to some economics question and my take on economics was that it was largely common sense embellished. The result was three pages of b........s...t . His comment was that I would make a better journalist than an economist.

 

[Bomber_Harris]

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!

another good post

yes it was Cirencester (lovely town by the way)

75% sounds high, someone else has posted that they can't name one farmer in their part of the world that has been to uni, I guess the percentages will vary enormously from region to region

 

[ollie989898]

I went, in the years just after F and M. It was obvious then that the show could not go on and the numbers were not there.

To be frank, I hated every second of it. I didn't want to be away from home and I drove home every weekend. I did the work, but by year 3 it was like pulling teeth only without the excitement and the knowledge that eventually there would be none left to pull and you'd be done.

I learned far far more in the years after Uni than whilst I was there. Looking back, it was an ominous portent for what would come in the years immediately after I graduated... ended up working for the old man.

There were people on my course or doing similar that should never have graced the hall of any higher educational establishment. People failing their first or second years again and again but Daddy bailed them out, I guess they were kicking the can down the road and enjoying the party time with friends.

The most valuable things I took away were the ability to focus, learn things by researching and going beyond your own knowledge.

Thankfully, medicine is a lot more practical in nature these days out of practical necessity and what the NHS wants. The idea of doing even another year of a degree that was entirely theory would cave my skull in.

 

[bankrupt]

on day one, while walking round the College, I bumped into the then Principal, Sir Emrys Jones.

Good bloke - old mate of mine, in fact.

I remember, sometime in late 1972, warmly congratulating him upon his up-coming appointment to Cirencester and telling him that they should at least be able to teach him there to drive a tractor.

For, at that time, having grown up on a remote Welsh hill farm, done exceptionally well at school, straight into Uni and then on to the Great Wen to join (and ultimate to head) ADAS, he'd never actually gotten around to getting behind a wheel.

No doubt you will know whether he ultimately succeeded in this.

 

[Agrivator]

I heard a former Principal state that Cirencester students are the cream of British Agriculture -

Rich and thick.

 

[le bon paysan]

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.

Did my BASIS at Cirencester.
I am 2 payments away from buying and owning my own farm. Ex tenant. Inherited nothing.
Next year Rodders..........................

 

[bankrupt]

I am 2 payments away from buying and owning my own farm. .........................

I am now 204 (12x17) payments away from paying off my latest mortgage, le bon paysan, but still claim here that I own my own farm.

 

[le bon paysan]

I am now 204 (12x17) payments away from paying off my latest mortgage, le bon paysan, but still claim here that I own my own farm.

Yes, we are proprietaires. Can't wait for it to be paid off either.

 

[Pond digger]

CSE in woodworking . Errrrrrr, come to think about it, I didn’t do woodwork!

 

[Brisel]

Masters In Business Administration (MBA) Advanced Farm Management
Higher National Diploma

I manage someone else's farm.

 

[Two Tone]

I heard a former Principal state that Cirencester students are the cream of British Agriculture -

Rich and thick.

Nah, he was probably just pi55ed off that he got fired.

 

[br jones]

Bsc with hons

 

[Two Tone]

Masters In Business Administration (MBA) Advanced Farm Management
Higher National Diploma

I manage someone else's farm.

Did my BASIS at Cirencester.
I am 2 payments away from buying and owning my own farm. Ex tenant. Inherited nothing.
Next year Rodders..........................

I also did my BASIS at Cirencester.
I forgot to mention my degree from The University of Life, attained [mostly] from behind the School Bikeshed.
Still working on my Masters......and the mortgage. It'll be a year or two yet Rodders.
So to make ends meet, I also manage someone else's farms too.

 

[Princess Pooper]

1st class BSc (Joint Hons) Agriculture and Forestry. Currently struggling with an MSc in sustainable pastoral agriculture...the sustainable ag bit is great, it's the statistics, always my bugbear, that is defeating me! Oh, and qualified as a chartered accountant somewhere in between but that's pretty rusty now.

 

[The Agrarian]

Cirencester also educated the current Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Ireland. Don't know what they were thinking letting a rascal like that in.

 

[Agrivator]

Has anyone got a Diploma in Pratology from Harper Adams? - with distinction.