ARABLE farmers must understand what the market - particularly their local market - requires.

Alastair Dickie, marketing director of the Home Grown Cereals Authority, said they should find out who their nearest processors were and what they needed. They should then see what changes they might have to make to meet that need and what they could provide to keep the processors' loyalty.

He used the UK wheat market to show how sectors which were only small nationally were hugely important locally.

The largest sector was compound feed, which accounted for 31pc of wheat use nationally. Milling wheat followed at 26pc and exports at 22pc.

The starch market accounted for only 4pc nationally, but could be more than 50pc of the local market for farmers near Corby in Northamptonshire or Icklingham in Suffolk.

Similarly, distilling accounted for only 4pc of wheat nationally, but in Scotland might account for more than 70pc locally.

Mr Dickie said growers should find out what their local mill was producing and what specifications it required.

It was the same story in the barley market, where 41pc went on on-farm feed; 30pc for malting, with different requirements across the UK; 17pc for exports and 2pc on other uses.