Four Scottish colleges have merged to form Scotland's Rural University College (SRUC).
TheScottish Agricultural College has combined with Barony, Elmwood and Oatridge colleges to form the SRUC, which claims to be the 'largest institution of its kind in Europe'. The merger was finalised on 1 October following a successful Scottish statutory instrument.
TheSRUC, which is already training over 8,000 students across its six campuses, hopes to obtain degree-awarding powers by 2014, and is undertaking agricultural research with reach to over 50 different countries.
SRUC chairman Lord Jamie Lindsay said the merger is part of Scotland's plans to raise competitiveness of the country's agri-food industry, which is worth over £12bn (€15bn) a year.
'Withinthe lifetime of today's SRUC students, world food production must almost double to feed the growing population,' said Lindsay.
Scottishrural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead said: 'This merger of our land-based colleges will ensure that Scots have access to the highest quality training and research which will stand our rural communities in good stead for generations to come.'
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