The winner of AgriScot’s 2024 Business Skills’ competition is Bruce Adkin, who grew up working on his family beef and sheep farm near Thornhill in Dumfries & Galloway, also relief milking at weekends.

He is in his third year of studying Agriculture Bsc (hons) at the SRUC Barony Campus.

The competition, which seeks out the next generation of young agri-professional talent, focused this year on the theme of ‘how multiple income streams can contribute to business resilience’.

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The first heats of the competition, which is sponsored by NFU Mutual and organised by Heather Kerr at Scotland’s Rural College SRUC with support from Young Farmers at SAYFC, were held on a farm in Lanarkshire. Contestants were asked to answer questions about beef and sheep production and showcase their technical agricultural knowledge.

“I really enjoyed the heats at the farm in Lanarkshire,” said Bruce. “It was interesting learning about different production systems to my own farm and it had lots of diversification. I enjoyed the finals at AgriScot too, where we had to analyse a new innovative product in a 30-minute interview. It was a spot sprayer, and we had to look at the pros and cons of how it would enhance business management and whether it would be a viable investment. It was all such a good, enjoyable and rewarding experience and I would recommend anyone to enter next year. It was a good opportunity to improve myself and my business acumen and a great challenge to be part of the heats.”

Away from work, Bruce enjoys country sports as well as attending monitor farm meetings, and events with young farmers. His future ambitions include helping run his family farm. He intends to invest his £1000 prize in ‘something wise’.

The runners up were Senga Barron and Max Bryson. Senga graduated from SRUC (Edinburgh) in 2023 with a BA (Hons) degree in Rural Business Management, and now works as a Graduate Rural Surveyor for Galbraith in Perth. She is from a farming background, having been brought up on the family farm in Angus with arable, potato and beef enterprises. Outside of work, she enjoys managing her flock of Suffolk sheep.

Max is in third year studying Agriculture Bsc (hons) at the SRUC Barony campus. He has grown up with a strong passion for farming, in particular dairy and machinery. He competes in many Young Farmer’s competitions in his spare time such as speech making and dairy cattle dressing. He also enjoys showing cattle under the Knowe Ayrshires / Knoweside Holstiens prefix.

AgriScot chair, Robert Neil, highlighted the importance of the AgriScot Business Skills competition for challenging young people to think creatively and strategically about how to run businesses in agriculture.

“It’s been another really good round of judging and seeing young people working to enhance their skills and confidence which is vital for the future of our industry. The focus on building business resilience through diverse income streams is very topical as we see farming businesses across the UK thinking and operating differently in order to stay relevant and profitable in a changing agricultural landscape.”