New Manchester wheat plant will give North West farmers advantage

The opening of Cargill's redeveloped Manchester wheat processing plant will provide benefits for the North West's livestock and dairy sectors as well as its arable farmers, the chairman of the NFU's North West combinable crops board said today.

The plant, which has had £75 million spent on it, will now take 750,000 tonnes of UK grown wheat rather than imported French maize and will produce a range of products for the food, feed and pharmaceutical sectors.

Richard Reeves, NFU North West combinable crops board chairman, said: "With transportation costs continually rising it must be an added advantage for North West farmers to have a world class wheat processing plant on their doorstep.

"Sourcing wheat from the locality will obviously be preferable to Cargill because it will cut down on haulage costs considerably. Livestock farmers in the region will also be able to take advantage of Cargill's Trafford Gold animal feed which is welcome at a time of spiralling feed costs."