A COLLEGE has appointed Duncan Branch as its farm manager.

Askham Bryan College near York runs a 174-hectare mixed arable and livestock holding, Westfield Farm.

Originally from Huddersfield, Mr Branch studied at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, and went on to manage farms in Scotland and Herefordshire.

His more recent venture as tenant of a West Sussex farm, was brought short by the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001. For the past three years, he has been teaching agricultural science at a college in Chichester.