Database deal to proceed despite the OFT.

Holstein uk is to forge ahead with the formal establishment of the Centre for Dairy Information (CDI) despite the Office of Fair Trading's decision to refer the proposed acquisition of CIS by NMR to the Competition Commission.

Speaking after announcement of the OFT decision this week, Holstein UK chief executive David Hewitt said: "We are naturally disappointed over this referral, which casts a serious cloud over the national milk-recording integration plans.

"The commitments given by NMR in our detailed 2003 negotiations were sufficient to convince us that the agreement as a whole was the best way ahead for the dairy industry. It was also exactly the sort of initiative so positively encouraged by the Curry Report to meet the challenges of the rapidly-changing agricultural market.

"Our parallel proposals for a single national database have received unanimous and enthusiastic support from across the industry" he said. "So we are determined to forge ahead with developing the Centre for Dairy Information without delay to our originally agreed model and timescales."

Mr Hewitt said CIS had already pledged full integration of all data from its 1,800 milk recorded herds into CDI to join the ancestry and type classification information from 5,000 Holstein herds.

At the same time, he said, CDI was set to become the single national source of all bull and cow data from MDC Evaluations within the coming year, adding that he was in active discussion with all the other dairy breed societies to integrate their information into the database as soon as possible.

"This will give us a flying start in improving national data processing efficiency, accuracy, value and usability," Mr Hewitt said.

"Regardless of any milk recording decision, we have high hopes that NMR will join us in this thoroughly worthwhile project at an early stage. We have no doubt that a single integrated database is essential for the industry."