Farming specialists visit Guernsey to help new dairy plans

Specialists from Europe have visited Guernsey to assess ways of reducing the cost of building a new island dairy.

The current scheme to modernise operations, proposed by the States Trading Supervisory Board (STSB), has been estimated to cost £36m.

Lely, a farm technology firm, has been working with the Guernsey Farmers' Association on designs to cut costs.

The STSB says current facilities are "aging and potentially failing", putting the dairy industry at risk.

The States has pushed back the building of a new facility until at least 2025, because of the current price tag estimate.

STSB president Deputy Peter Roffey, has warned keeping the current dairy open and upgrading its current kit would still cost as much as £14m.

The board has also been working out how much running the facility in its current state for the next seven years would cost.

At the moment, the law means Guernsey farmers have to supply their milk to Guernsey Dairy, which is operated by the States.

Farmers' association president Michael Bray said Lely approached the group at the end of 2022 and he put forward different proposals to the STSB earlier this year.

If the farmers' plan was approved it could see a dairy using Lely's technology operating locally.

Mr Bray said new plans "could have created some efficiencies within the dairy," since some of the administration would be done centrally from the company's Dutch headquarters.

The issue is that the STSB had only been tasked with looking at the costs of keeping the current facility open, rather than the development of a new operation, Mr Bray argued.

"We weren't supportive of a £36m price tag because that isn't viable for Guernsey; it isn't viable for the farming industry - there has to be an alternative out there… we need to see some future," he said.

Former commerce minister Kevin Stewart also blamed a lack of progress towards building a new dairy on a "complete do-nothing States".

He said: "What we need is the States as custodians of the breed, to build this dairy in partnership with the farmers."

Mr Stewart's comments come nearly a decade after he suggested the States should look at a new dairy at Home Farm, next to Saumarez park, which could also become a tourist attraction.

"It's quite simple really, Guernsey needs housing - knock down the current dairy and you have a perfect site for housing there," he said.

Mr Roffey, also president of the States' Employment Committee, agreed that a lack of progress threatens the whole industry.

"We have an aging and potentially failing facility there and, if it were to be out of action for several weeks, it could be the end of the dairy industry," he said.

"As once you start importing milk big time, which we'd have to do, I think it would be the finger out of the dyke, as it were; so it really is important we move this forward."

However, he also said that because plans from Lely were innovative and completely novel in parts, it was a cause for concern.

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