EUROPE'S "largest farm management company" is shipping 7,500 tonnes of malting barley to Germany though Poole in the run-up to Christmas.

The first consignment - 1,300 tonnes produced by Velcourt on its farms in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire - has been shipped from Poole.

The MV Hoo Tern took the cargo to Rotterdam. It was trans-shipped inland to a maltings owned by Weissheimer Malz at Gelsenkirchen in Germany.

The shipment formed part of a 3,000-tonne consignment of spring malting barley for delivery to Weissheimer Malz during the next two months.

Weissheimer Malz has also purchased 4,500 tonnes of Velcourt-produced winter malting barley for delivery over coming weeks.

The shipments are being organised by Combined Arable Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centaur Grain which has renewed its marketing contract with Velcourt for a third successive year.

The agreement covers 160,000-180,000 tonnes of crops produced annually by Velcourt farms in the UK.

"We work very closely with Centaur to plan our short- and long-term crop marketing strategies," said Velcourt farms director Brian Redrup.

"The consignments which we are currently shipping are a good example of the strategic management initiative designed to maximise the profitability of our farms in the South West."

Combined Arable Service's trading manager Richard Jenner said: "We enjoy an ongoing association with Weissheimer Malz and have supplied them with parcels of malting barley for a number of years.

"To fulfill the current consignments we are working closely with Velcourt and drawing grain from their farms within a 40-mile radius of Poole.

"The shipments involved the rapid movement of a large tonnage of grain within a very short space of time, which is attractive to farms because it enables them to optimise the use of their labour.

"Exporting malting barley from this area of the country is more cost-effective than transporting the same tonnage by road to UK maltsters, most of whom are located in the East of England," he added.