Local growers help set record grain order

Thousands of tonnes of harvested crops from Yorkshire farms are part of the UK's biggest ever single shipment of grain in an order that is destined for the other side of the world.
By The Newsroom
Published 9th Jul 2016, 07:00 BST
The shipment of 70,000 tonnes of feed wheat is being loaded onto Trade Prosperity, a 229-metre vessel, at the Port of Immingham, near Hull.The shipment of 70,000 tonnes of feed wheat is being loaded onto Trade Prosperity, a 229-metre vessel, at the Port of Immingham, near Hull.
The shipment of 70,000 tonnes of feed wheat is being loaded onto Trade Prosperity, a 229-metre vessel, at the Port of Immingham, near Hull.

The shipment of 70,000 tonnes of feed wheat is being loaded onto Trade Prosperity, a 229-metre vessel, at the Port of Immingham near Hull.

Glencore Grain UK, one of the UK’s largest grain merchants, has gathered the wheat from growers across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire for an order that will be shipped to Vietnam later this month.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The trip to the South East Asian country, via the Cape of Good Hope, will take the ship around 34 days.

The vessel will travel at an average speed of 15 knots and will cover a distance of 12,370 nautical miles.

James Maw, Glencore’s managing director, said: “The scale of this record-breaking export exemplifies the importance of access to world trade for UK growers.

“It highlights the essential role of contacts and experience offered by the global Glencore Agricultural products division in successfully negotiating the business half-way around the world, and then the immense logistics of physically delivering the supply of grain from UK farms.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Julian Dunning, a farm trader for the firm in Yorkshire, added: “After the huge harvest of 2015 it has been imperative to move large stocks of grain, before the new crop comes in this summer. This trade will have had a significant impact in underpinning all important crop values for the new season.”

He reported that with the vast scale of this shipment, the company have had to work with a large numbers of farmers to co-ordinate and move the required volume of wheat.

Mr Dunning said: “We are fortunate to have so many extremely professional growers who understand the demands and have helped to achieve the loading, along with an excellent port facility at Immingham, operated by ABP, with the capability to manage such an immense shipment.”

The crop yield comes from a total of 18,000 acres of farmland and needs more than 2,500 lorry loads to complete the loading process.

Related topics:YorkshireHullLincolnshire