Store upgrade to benefit Northumberland growers

Frontier Agriculture is investing £1.3m to double the capacity of its grain drying and storage facilities at Lowick near Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Work on the site is well underway and the firm is confident it will be ready in time for this harvest.

The improvements include a new continuous-flow drier capable of drying malting barley to 12% moisture at 46t an hour and other grains at 120t an hour; grain handling and cleaning equipment that will increase intake from 60t an hour to 150t an hour; a new pre-cleaner and dresser; more “wet” grain storage capacity (up from 350t to 1,050t); and conversion from gas-oil to LPG fuel.

Site manager Darren Jenkins said the investment in increased capacity would help ensure farmers could meet end user specification, even in wet harvests.

“Once complete, we will have increased capacity to process twice the amount of wet grain than we could before. Increased efficiency of the haulage, intake speed and wet storage capacity will result in a quicker uplift of wet grain from farms, reducing the risk to the quality of our customers’ harvested grain.”