MORE than 100 jobs may be lost in East Malling if a research station is forced to close after almost a century of work.

Horticulture Research International employs about 150 people, from farm workers to scientists. The station, specialising in fruit farming, may close by March 2004 unless it can be made independent of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

In a report for DEFRA published this week, independent consultant Derek Langslow recommended that the station should close if it could not be taken under the wing of the East Malling Trust for Horticultural Research, based at neighbouring Bradbourne House.

HRI East Malling currently receives about £2.8 million from the Government each year. It receives a similar amount of funding from other sources, including the trust.

David Gray, head of the research station, said: "The report is very clear that DEFRA do need to develop a sound strategy for supporting horticultural research and move to a more long-term consistent view of funding and distributing their funds for particular research programmes."

Because of a lack of strategic planning by the Government, DEFRA should give only three of its five research stations a four-year-contract in the future, according to the report.

Its station at Wye should be transferred to Imperial College at Wye. Ian Graham-Bryce, chairman of the East Malling trust, said: "We shall be examining carefully the implications of the recommendation that we should take over the East Malling operation."