A Darlington farmer has decided to turn his back on the industry after 12 years and pursue a new career in IT.

Richard Davies claims the continuous decline in the agricultural industry and subsequent loss of revenue has forced him to change careers.

Richard, 27, from Hurworth Moor near Darlington, said: "Due to the appalling state of the agricultural industry and the likelihood that economic conditions aren't set to improve in the near future, I was left with little choice but to explore other avenues."

He has taken a number of self-study IT courses and courses from Newton Aycliffe-based Vision Training, one of the region's largest IT training providers.

He has achieved one of the company's highest pass rates and possibly one of the top grades nationally by gaining an impressive 100 per cent or 1000/1000 in various Microsoft Office User Specialist 2000 examinations (MOUS).

Richard is now a fully qualified Microsoft specialist in Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access 2000 at expert level.He is seeing work in systems analysis or networking.

Vision Training offers a wide range of IT training courses from its regional training centres in Newton Aycliffe, Darlington, Teesside, Gateshead and Nottingham. Anyone wanting further details should contact Lesley or Cynthia on freephone 0800 9802799