VIVERGO, the East Yorkshire biorefinery, expects to boost the fortunes of the region's wheat farmers by £1m a month on the back of an improved wheat harvest.

The £350m plant opened at Saltend, near Hull, last year creating a new market for farmers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to sell their animal grade feed wheat into.

Historically the vast majority of that wheat would have been exported to mainland Europe for animal feed or biofuel production.

But by selling it to Vivergo, the company says farmers would realise £1m per month as opposed to the export value previously realised. The figure is based on it sourcing approximately 91,600 tonnes a month.

The company will use 1.1m tonnes of feed wheat a year which it turns into renewable transport fuel and protein rich animal feed - with the wheat harvest returning to pre-2012 levels it expects to reach full production capacity over the next few weeks.

It aims to source feed wheat from farms within a 50-mile radius and, a recent economic assessment said that once at full production the company will contribute £600ma year to the UK economy.

Rick Taylor, commercial director, said: "The UK has historically had a wheat surplus, exporting between 2.5 and 3m tonnes a year. As the UK’s biggest wheat buyer, we offer a 365 day demand for local arable farmers, providing a new sales channel, often giving more competitive rates for their feed-wheat as opposed to the previous export of this commodity.

“Not only are we supporting local farmers, but we’re also bolstering the UK economy by creating around 2,400 jobs so far, with this figure set to increase to around 3,800 once the plant is at full production later this year. Many of those jobs will be in the agricultural sector.”

Minette Batters, NFU deputy president, said: “The UK biofuels industry has an important role to play in adding value to UK arable crops such as feed wheat and oilseed rape. Vitally the industry also produces a high protein animal feed. With consistent levels of production, the industry has the ability to help shelter livestock farmers from the volatility of global commodity markets and reduce UK dependency on imported soya.”

As well as producing 420m litres of bioethanol a year – around half of the UK’s current demand - the plant will also produce up to 500,000 tonnes of animal feed once fully operational, the protein requirement for almost 20 per cent of the UK’s dairy cows.

Mr Taylor added: “It is essential that the UK government is supportive in terms of legislation to increase the current bioethanol blending ratio, so that Vivergo and other UK producers can continue to provide a long term, sustainable and stable future market for UK farmers.”

Currently, up to five per cent of bioethanol is blended with regular petrol at the pump. By 2020, the UK must ensure that ten per cent of its transport fuel is sourced from renewable sources.