Industrial hemp becoming more attractive in low water season in New South Wales Macquarie Valley

By Dugald Saunders, Sally Bryant
Source: abc.net.au


PHOTO: Member for Parkes Mark Coulton says he's positive about the possibility of industrial hemp becoming a mainstream industry in Australia. (Dugald Saunders)

Farmers in the New South Wales central west are looking at alternatives to growing irrigation cotton this year, and hemp is one of the options being considered.

With low water levels in Burrendong Dam, irrigators in the Macquarie River valley are facing a dry argument this summer.

Agronomists say there will be much less cotton planted across the valley this growing season, with insufficient water allocation to guarantee the crop.

Hemp is a crop that has been sidelined by the growth of cotton as a fibre, but in recent years it has attracted more interest and greater numbers of farmers are trying their hand at it.

There is sufficient interest in hemp in the NSW central west to prompt landcare group Macquarie 2100 to host a workshop / seminar in Narromine this week.

Charles Tobin is part of a small group of university students who have established a hemp 'start-up' in the Lockyer Valley in Queensland.

He and his partners have undergraduate experience in agronomy, commerce and languages, and they say they're interested in the long-term future of industrial hemp.

Charles says he'd like to see their operation become a vertically integrated business, at the forefront of establishing the industry in Australia.

He says their youth might be an initial surprise to people but they know their stuff.

"Once they talk to us, they realise that we're talking about a commercially viable business and that we want to help get a sustainable industry up and running."

Bob Doyle was growing hemp at his farm in the Hunter Valley, but says he couldn't find anyone to process it, so that's when he got into that side of the business as well.

"The only way we could realise the potential of hemp was to go about the exercise of building our own mill," he said.

Meanwhile, the debate over whether or not to legalise hemp for human consumption continues.