service companies have emerged not just fromthe manufacturing sector but also from the agricultural sctor by 2002 ,58.3 per cent of uk farmers were engaged in some form of diversified activity to the extent that nearly one in five diversified holdings now had no conventional agricultural production (Centre for rural research 2003) the idea of adding value to agricultural products was nothing new to farmers after all many had undertaken some processing of the food that they had grown such as turning milk into cheese many more had ventured into services by selling the produce thatthey had grown though their own farm shops.