Source: abc.net.au
Sold in health food stores for around $70 a kilo, this industrial
hemp seed powder is made by Hemp Australia.
Australia's ban on hemp foods could be overturned when the Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum meets on Friday.
Currently, low-THC hemp is banned in food in Australia and New Zealand.
However, New Zealand has permitted the consumption of hemp oil since 2002.
Australian industrial hemp growers and a consumer lobby want the forum of state and federal food ministers to overturn the ban.
Farmers say they produce a safe, valuable oilseed with no psychoactive effect.
"This is a harmless product," Tasmanian farmer George Mills said.
He and son Nick Mills are now growing their third annual crop.
They have sown a hemp variety bred to yield seeds that are high in the beneficial omega three and six oils.
But their 28-hectare licensed crop is destined for low-value uses compared with the human food market that some farmers in New Zealand supply.
"I think all of us farmers are getting sick of this red tape and nonsense," Mr Mills said.
"We need the governments to go ahead and allow the human ingestion of hemp, and allow the hemp industry to grow in this state."
This week's meeting is the third where the Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has considered overturning the ban.
The Forum received advice from Food Standards Australia and New Zealand, recommending approval of the sale of hulled and non-viable hemp seeds.
However, the prohibition on hemp foods in Australia is still backed by some states' police.
NSW hemp masonry expert and educator, Klara Marosszeky, said that was out of step with most of the world.
She said Australia was lagging behind most other nations in environmentally sustainable innovation with hemp.
"I find it amazing that we're not developing the food industry," Ms Marosszeky said.
"The export market is huge and the internal demand within Australia is huge.
"At the moment the [Australian] Government is essentially turning a blind eye to hemp imported for food being sold in health food shops and lots and lots of other venues.
"Of course, it says 'not for human consumption' and there might be something there [on the label] or on the teaspoon in the picture.
"So it's really contradictory information that's being given to the general public.
"People know, or are starting to know, it's incredibly good for you."
In health food shops across Australia, an array of hemp products are sold.
Sticky labels on packets of low THC hemp seeds declare Australia is one of the few places in the world where hemp is banned for human consumption.
But the labels do little to deter committed consumers like Tasmanian, Estelle Ross.
Ms Ross said she regularly buys hemp seed, hemp oil and hemp protein powder in Launceston to use in her cooking at home.
She said industrial hemp had no psychoactive effect, but was great for her overall health.
"There are loads of warnings on the packets [saying] we're the only country in the world that doesn't allow it," Ms Ross said.
"I figure if they [the US, Canada, Japan and EU] had years and years of research allowing their people to eat it, why shouldn't we do it here?
"And that's what I do, you see.
"Industrial hemp is only allowed to have 0.03 per cent of the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, so you couldn't possibly get high on it."
While consumers like Ms Ross typically pay more than $50 a kilogram for hemp seed and protein powder in retail health food outlets, Tasmanian farmers last year received $3.50 a kilogram for cleaned and dried hemp seed.
George Mills is one of only 11 farmers in Tasmania currently growing the low-THC hemp crops.
He said he was hamstrung by red tape that wasted time and money.
"It's beyond aggravation, because it is beyond all sensible rationale at all," Mr Mills said.
"We've been trying to grow hemp now for 15 years to get it legal; that's industrial hemp.
"The last eight years have been severely constrained by government bureaucracy and inter-departmental duck-shoving.
"The politicians won't grasp it.
"No one is prepared to make the stance and realise that growing industrial hemp has got nothing to do with growing high-THC hemp.
"It's a magnificent product and here in Australia we have been constrained by people who have no financial input and will not make a decision.
"We lose money because of these bureaucrats and governments who will not make this sensible decision."
The Tasmanian Government supports the use of industrial hemp products in food and said it would continue to lobby strongly for federal approval.
Last year, it released revised guidelines for the production of industrial hemp in Tasmania.
Meanwhile, in the US, two Democrats from Oregon have teamed up with two Republicans from Kentucky to introduce a bill that would legalise industrial hemp cultivation and production across America.
No comments:
Post a Comment