Rural college’s £4.5bn potential

Matching the output levels attained in top performing countries could see an additional £4.5 billion in gross value added to Scotland’s economy by the rural sector.

That was the finding of a report commissioned by Scotland’s rural college, SRUC, as part of its campaign to set up an enterprise university for the sector.

Benchmarking Scotland against nations which already had a rural university – Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and New Zealand – the report conducted by independent consultancy, BIGGAR Economics, found a number of benefits. These included better productivity in the agricultural and primary sectors – as well as much higher levels of investment in research and development (R&D).

“For example, in terms of primary sector productivity, the gross value added (GVA) per job was €30,331 (£26,099)for Scotland, compared to €64,169 for the Netherlands and €99,676 for Norway,” said SRUC principal Professor Wayne Powell, pictured. “At the same time, R&D investment into the primary and agricultural sectors across the UK was also shown to be significantly lower than the other nations being benchmarked – just €6.65 per capita for the UK, compared to €53.37 for Norway and €30.51 for the Netherlands.”

Powell said that the report provided a compelling reason for maximising the potential of the rural economy: “By looking outside we can see clearly that the other countries studied in the report have rural universities which drive innovation and economic growth in the rural sectors.”