Growing up on a dairy farm in Cumbria, Thomas Blair has always had a keen interest in agriculture and so the 24-year-old, who has been a member of Young Farmers for eight years, decided to return to full time education and study for an HNC in Agriculture at SRUC.

He chose SRUC because of its good reputation and the wide range of topics covered on the course. “The course covered everything from livestock and arable to the environmental and financial aspects of running a modern farming business which will set me up well for further studies and employment,” he said.

Starting the course during the coronavirus pandemic meant most of the teaching was online. However, Thomas said: “I am lucky to have an area to do my work and a good internet connection which helps.

"Not meeting all the staff and students has been strange but we have tried to get to know each other the best we can in the circumstances and hopefully things will be closer to normality when we return.”

Having completed his HNC and been awarded the Weir of Courance Prize for best first year Agriculture student at the Barony campus and he is now progressing onto the HND course, with plans to carry on to a BSc (Hons) degree.

In the meantime, he is working as a harvest student at Percy Farms, on Northumberland Estates. “This is giving me practical experience on a large-scale arable farm and seeing how things operate here during the harvest,” he added.

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