SHAC and NAASA and ADAS and MAFF

John spent many hours following up this research and presented a draft document for our Reunion Weekend in October 2022. A few names and notes were added by members during the Sunday morning visit to Seale-Hayne where John’s list was on display, but sadly, John passed away unexpectedly before he could complete his work. We are pleased to print John’s initial report and lists.

The NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL ADVISORY SERVICE (NAAS) was set up in 1945 following the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1944. The service was first promoted within Government in 1943 culminating in the 1944 Act going through Parliament. Food was in desperately short supply, and the Government was looking at ways of increasing production and bringing science into farming.

Between the wars, advisory work had been carried out by County Councils and the Agricultural departments of Universities and Colleges. They were all assimilated into NAAS when it was started up in 1946, set up as a result of the growing awareness during the war of the significance of technical advances in improving agricultural production.

The service was organised in eight regions with about 500 general advisors and specialists within counties. The service provided free technical information to farmers and organised free lectures and demonstrations. Advisers also assisted with improvement grant applications. Research and development was carried out on Experimental Husbandry Farms and Horticulture Stations. As early as the 1950s, farm management and a modern business approach to farming were being encouraged and in 1963, a farm management department was established within NAAS and techniques developed for whole farm analysis and individual crop and livestock costing.

The name was changed in 1971 to the AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND ADVISORY SERVICE (ADAS).

Seale-Hayne College provided such services but the work was transferred to Staplake Mount at Starcross soon after the creation of NAAS.

This then became the sub-regional office of NAAS covering Devon and Cornwall and housed the sub-regional specialists and laboratories. Staplake Mount was closed in the 1980s when ADAS was being prepared for privatisation.

The Veterinary Investigation Centre in an adjacent building still operates. The senior veterinary investigation officer in charge at Starcross also acted as the veterinary lecturer for the CDA course.

The farm Management post-diploma course at Seale-Hayne was set up in 1954 under the direction of H T Williams, Bursar and Vice-Principal and former head of Economics at MAFF with the remit to train students who would be suitable as Advisors in ADAS.

The Principal, Dr H I Moore, was looking to widen the courses offered at Seale-Hayne and ensure that there was a market for Farm Management diploma students.

The Sealehaynian Magazine No 77, Trinity MCMLIX (1959) reported on page 59:

“It is evident to clear-thinking people that the time has come when the teaching of agriculture for intending farmers and those intimately associated with farmers, such as advisory officers in the N.A.A.S. and commercial world, should be left to Colleges who have proved in the last ten years that they can do it very efficiently.

“Training for farming itself is very specialised and essentially technological in character. Farming, complicated as it is now, needs technologists as much as any other industry. I have interpreted the word technologist as one capable of applying the finding of scientists and research workers to the practical tasks of food production. In my view it is not only farmers who need a technological training but also Advisory Officers and General Advisors of the N.A.A.S., the Colonial Service and commercial firms. Advisory Officers meet farmers in all circumstances on their own ground, and they need first and foremost, to win the confidence of the farmer. The capacity to do this is provided by a sound practical training. A good personality and the ability to be adaptable and equally at home with the squire as with the smallest small farmer is also necessary and our Colleges are large enough alive enough to turn out this kind of person and this is our aim.

For these reasons I contend that in the general advisory field our best students are superior to the ordinary B.Sc. (Agriculture) product of our Universities.”

It is interesting to note that many NAAS/ADAS advisers as well as University, College and Farm Institute staff were members of the Agricultural Education Association. John Simpson was Chairman of the AEA Executive Committee for four years in the 1980s and was succeeded by Dr Fred Harper, Vice Principal at Harper Adams at that time.

Farm Management course students who joined NAAS/ADAS

Seale-Hayne students who joined MAFF, and students who joined NAAS or ADAS before or after the farm management course commenced.