Australian Primary Hemp will plant 300ha in Western District this year

By SARAH HUDSON
Source: irrigationaustralia.com.au


Seed money: Australian Primary Hemp director James Hood (left) and business partner Charlie Mann, who farms sheep and beef at Derrinallum, in western Victoria, aim to farm 300ha of Finola hemp with five growers. Pictures: Zoe Phillips

THE Australian hemp industry is hitting a high. But not the kind of high that has kept it constrained all these years.

According to James Hood, a director of Australian Primary Hemp, even though it has been legal to farm hemp in Victoria since 1998 for non-food products, the industry has flourished on the back of April’s Australian ministerial decision to permit the sale of low THC hemp seed foods, effective from November.

“It had come up in COAG (Council of Australian Governments) discussions for a number of years and we saw an opportunity to pre-empt the legislation,” James said.

“If it didn’t get the nod this year, we were going to push on regardless, given the export demand alone.”

After several years of research and development, ­Australian Primary Hemp launched in 2016 with a three-pronged approach: farm hemp on a property at Derrinallum in western Victoria, as well as contracting other grain growers; establish Australia’s largest “hemp hub”, which dehulls hemp seed in its Geelong facility; and outsource value adding including oil production.

James’s partner in the business is Charlie Mann, who farms sheep and beef at Derrinallum and who has allocated a 90ha section for the first 2017-18 hemp crop.

Combined with four other contracted Western District farmers, the total production for the company’s initial crop — sowing 10 tonnes of seed in October, harvested in January — will be 300ha, or 240 tonnes. Hemp fetches $3/kg at the farm gate.

“We are currently seeking growers at the moment so we can produce 300,000 tonnes in the next 24 to 36 months,” James said, adding that ideally growers would be in the Western District, but they could be as far as NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.

“They need to be commercial grain growers with their own existing infrastructure and in a good rainfall area.”

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DRUG NET

ONE of the impediments to quick growth of hemp farming is strict conditions under the Drugs, ­Poisons and Controlled Substances Act placed on growers, and all growers need a licence to grow hemp.

During every harvest DEPI officers take a sample of buds for testing to measure levels of the active compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and only once the results are in — which can take weeks — are farmers allowed to sell or process hemp seeds.

“Licensing is definitely one of the hurdles to hemp farming but we believe it’s a short-term hurdle and licensing will become streamlined and relaxed as the crop becomes more prominent.

“We are able to help farmers get their licences.”

There are up to 2000 varieties of hemp available globally, made into hundreds of different products from food to building materials to clothing.

Australian Primary Hemp is the Australian distributor and grower for a Finnish species called Finola, chosen because it is grown for food production, is high yielding, has a shorter growth cycle and is adaptable to current cropping infrastructure.

In Victoria, the limit for THC is 0.35 per cent, while ­Finola is less than 0.2 per cent.

Hemp trials on 44ha in Derrinallum this year — as well as on contracted farms in Tasmania — showed a conservative production estimate of 800kg/ha, with Finnish production showing 1-1.5t/ha.

Finola grows to 180cm, compared with hemp fibre varieties, which can grow to 365cm.

“Finola lends itself to conventional headers and air seeders. If you grow fibre hemp it grows like bamboo, like harvesting rope, requiring specialised equipment, and it can be quite flammable also,” James said.

In the 2018-19 harvest, the company will also be importing Finola seed stock for an Australian seedbank.

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SUMMER SUN

JAMES, 33, said hemp was an ideal rotational summer crop.

Seed has a shallow planting to 3mm depth, with 30kg of seed sown per hectare, with most failures explained by deep sowing to more than 2cm, especially in poorly suited soils.

Because it is fast-growing it generally out-competes weeds and has low chemical input needs.

“We had a few issues with dock roots in the trial but we think they may have re-established,” he said.

Contrary to popular belief, he said hemp did not return ­nitrogen to the soil and was in fact nitrogen hungry.

“Although the biomass can be returned as nutrients to the soil.”

Once sown, hemp needs an early rain, but following this prefers not to have saturated roots for more than 24 hours.

“It’s not terribly water hungry,” James said, adding that it still needs water.

“A long tap root alleviates the need for high rainfall but irrigation would be optimal.

“Hemp is actually known as a mop crop — they use it to decontaminate soil in places like Chernobyl.”

Once harvested, seeds are cleaned, graded and need to be dried. Currently Australian Primary Hemp uses a third-party drying and cleaning facility in the Western District.

Once dried, seeds will go to Australian Primary Hemp’s Geelong facility, where they have invested in an industrial Swiss dehuller, capable of uniformly hulling 3t/hour.

“Depending on growth we would be looking to replicate this facility in proximity to other growers in other states.”

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

JAMES said the demand for food-grade hemp domestically and internationally had so far been “staggering”, while there were more than 3500 uses for hemp.

One of the most sought-after is hemp’s medicinal properties. While hemp is low in THC, it does have high concentrations of cannabidiol, or CBD, which has medicinal properties in treating conditions such as epilepsy — another potential market for the company.

“Our plan before the ministerial decision in April was to export, including to Saudi Arabia for racehorses and for use in the cosmetics industry. We had done our research and could see the potential in overseas markets.

“In Asia Australia’s clean, green reputation means there’s huge demand.

“Before the ministerial decision we were getting lots of inquiries, but since then demand has grown even more.

“People are slowly becoming educated that hemp is not marijuana and you could smoke 100 acres of hemp and not get high.”