Last week I spoke about the potential of industrial hemp as the best way to diversify the economy of the lower Macquarie Valley and the timing couldn’t have been better.
Just a few days later national news items began appearing on how the USA had lifted a ban on growing hemp for human consumption and universities across the country were looking to set up trial crops and processing facilities.
My resolve to promote the Macquarie as a leader in the hemp industry revolution was strengthened after attending a Monday meeting of natural resource managers and a course over Tuesday and Wednesday where the main focus of conversation was about how tight any grant funding was going to be during the next few years which will make it tough to bring in state and federal dollars to the regions.
This is why we have to speak with one voice and, while asking for government assistance, be prepared to tell all levels of decision makers how we also plan to help ourselves.
There are plenty of people who’ve spent the past couple of decades banging their heads against a wall pushing the case, now I’m hoping we can harness much of that effort and put our hand up to be the valley where a diverse range of planting and processing trials can be staged.
This will put our region in the spotlight as well as placing farmers and town-based workers in the box seat once the industry becomes commercially viable.
The daily news cycle is looking at the losses in Australian manufacturing jobs, just another major reason why hemp has to be sold as an industry where many business models can potentially be set up, utilising Australia labour and remain cost effective.
Hemp could be the breeding ground to recoup the nation’s manufacturing jobs base.
Our farmers can harvest, mow and cut crops as effectively as any others in the world and our local cotton gins are proof that this area can process raw agricultural product to a certain stage.
Through local trials a few years ago we already know our farmers can grow fantastic crops in the area.
Hemp would provide opportunities for manufacturing paper products, an industry which still exists in this country and is under increasing environmental pressure to stop cutting down trees.
Other products include hempcrete, insulation and wood replacement in the building industry along with myriad health lotions and lubricating oils. None of these require enormous investment in processing plants and no reinventing the wheel, it’s carried out across the world in many locations.
This means diversification of production from large-scale industrial factories down to one-person cottage industries selling online or at farmers’ markets.
Already trials have been successful showing current cotton gins can process hemp so there’s the chance those capital intensive pieces of infrastructure we already have can extend their working seasons, employ workers for longer periods and provide better returns for investors, as well as pump extra cash into local communities.
What it means is that we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket.
The valley which pushes the hardest at this stage may well be the one that becomes the centre of gravity for this exciting ‘new’ industry.
Let’s capitalise on the fact that most other areas in Australia seem to have put this issue in the too hard basket and work collectively to be a leader.
Email federal member Mark Coulton calling on him to lobby PM Tony Abbott to overturn the human consumption ban on hemp food products, and email state MPs Kevin Humphries and Troy Grant calling for a research grant to set up a trial processing plant in one of our towns.
And also to remove the crazy burden of paperwork and compliance on growers for sowing a crop which is not an illicit drug.
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