Farmer-owned grain storage company Camgrain is to become the “greenest grain processing centre in the UK” after receiving a £4m government grant.

The funding, from the East of England Development Agency, part of the new Rural Development Programme for England, will go towards the construction of a £12m facility which will see Camgrain cut its carbon emissions by 1000t a year.

Philip Darke, Camgrain managing director, said the state-of-the-art plant near Newmarket would be more efficient than current facilities in the UK, giving the company a grain drying capacity of 500t/hour.

“As well as being more efficient and large scale than ever before, we will be looking at running the plant on renewable energy,” Mr Darke said.

“Potentially the biofuel will be sourced from our own 300 members, so they will see extra benefits from the site.”

Mr Darke said the new site would also take Camgrain’s capacity up from 160,000t to 250,000t.

“The growth of Camgrain has been enormous over the past 10 years, so we are keen for more farmers to join us to deal with demand,” he added.

“Once the new site is in place we will have a powerful structure to deal with 24-hour movement of grain off farm.”

The plant is expected to be operational by this harvest, and is due to be completed within five years. Camgrain’s farmer members will fund the remaining £8m not covered by the EEDA grant.

The grant is part of a £65m fund the EEDA has been charged to distribute across the region from 2007 to 2013 as part of the Rural Development Programme for England, jointly funded by DEFRA and the EU.

he programme is designed to help rural businesses become more competitive, as well as help develop new products and markets.

Richard Ellis, EEDA chairman, said Camgrain’s new energy saving facility would help the company become more competitive globally and safeguard local jobs.

“We would like to encourage applications from other businesses or projects that similarly meet these regional priorities.”