Agriculture (Level 6 only)

Agriculture is at a time of change, with severe challenges, including reduced and changed support funding, climate change, rising food quality demands and an expectation to enhance the environment. The withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU) has highlighted the importance of the effects of global economics and agricultural and food policy on the sustainability of agricultural production systems in the UK and overseas. Indeed, agriculture is feeling these effects more than any other sector of the economy, due to the dependence of many agricultural businesses on EU-sourced labour, exports to the EU and EU support payments. Typically support payments across many agricultural enterprises have been greater than net farm income (profit), particularly in the grazing livestock sector, which predominates in the southwest.

There is, however, opportunity for future-proofing the industry, possible through application of science and technology to overcome threats and achieve sustainable systems exploiting potential markets. There are the tools available to assist those entering the sector whether as managers, advisors, or applied scientists, as the digital agricultural revolution takes place. This BSc (Hons) Agriculture provision is designed to turn the challenges facing the industry into opportunities through the provision of these tools to our graduates.

As a recognised centre of agricultural knowledge exchange excellence, Duchy College’s Rural Business School (RBS), is closely engaged with the industries, professions and organisations involved in the global agri-food chain and the UK rural economy. Along with the Future Farm dairy research facility, there is therefore the capacity to support the development of students’ skills to play a key role in regional and national agricultural production systems.

There is a demand from both the farming and the ancillary sectors including animal nutrition, agronomy, farm consultancies and research and development organisations for a unique type of graduate with excellent knowledge of underlying economic principles and policy, along with a high level of understanding of science and the ability to critically evaluate and apply new technologies to a sector, which is lagging others in the uptake of technology. This Agriculture programme enables students to gain the skills and knowledge to facilitate food production and so meet the demands of employers in the sector.