RThis morning Professor Phil Thomas, principal of the Scottish Agricultural College, is thousands of miles away from his Edinburgh base in Jijin, a university town in Manchuria.

Jijin, formerly Kirin, is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a university, and Thomas will be speaking at one of the main celebrations. He has a tight eight- day schedule meeting with fellow academics and research workers, but I am told there will be time for a visit to the Great Wall of China, part of which is only a few miles from Jijin University.

However, this is no sightseeing, academia-celebrating junket. Professor Thomas and his vice-principal, Professor Geoff Barbour from Auchincruive, Ayr, a specialist in education programming, are there to try to earn income for SAC.

A few months ago government officials from Jijin were in Edinburgh to seek support in some of their research work on agricultural and horticultural development.

SAC also has the opportunity to attract students to its Scottish bases in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Ayr and to send staff and consultants to China to aid research and development work.

This is part of the work of SAC International, a unit with a staff of just 11 personnel headed by David Grant, which earns the college something close to #3m a year in student recruitment and marketing training courses overseas.

These can be funded by other nations, donors, or the British Government. The state of the Far East economies is a major concern at present but, according to SAC International's Simon Scanlan, ''we have been working for years all over the world to assist agricultural education and training. We are building for the future.''

SAC International is involved in projects in at least 15 countries stretching from Russia to South America. It is a vital income earner at a time of government restraints on spending on Scottish agricultural research centres.

Latest figures show that the Scottish Office Agriculture Environment and Fisheries Department had only #40m of grant aid to give to institutions such as SAC, the Rowett, Aberdeen, and Scottish Crops Research Institute, Dundee.

SAC gets about #12m and must supplement this by selling its expertise abroad and by attracting inward students.