UK – The Co-operative Group’s farming business, Farmcare, has announced its intention to withdraw from dairy farming, in order to concentrate resources on arable, fruit and vegetable production and its contract farming business.

Farmcare currently produces over 20 million litres of milk a year at four UK locations, and the decision will mean the loss of 48 jobs, the majority of them part-time.

The business has entered into a 30-day consultation period with its employees over the decision and has drawn up a closure programme for the four locations involved, which will run through to Spring 2004.

Christine Tacon, Farmcare’s general manager, said that the decision had been made with regret but was a “strategic business necessity”. She added: “In dairying the outlook for Farmcare is bleaker (than other sectors): it is far more difficult to add value to milk on a national level. The Co-operative Group needs to make a return both from the land assets it owns, as well as the goods it produces.”