Canadian Farmers Get High
Yields From Hemp Harvest;
24-Fold Increase In Acreage In Western Canada Over Last Year!
DEAland Farmers Find DEA Unyielding In Hate Harvest
(Marijuananews note: These numbers will put
added pressure on the prohibitionists to change their stalling tactics. Anything that can
be grown in Manitoba can be grown in the northern states of DEAland.) See
Police Opposition
Stalls Hemp Bill In Minnesota After Killing Medical Marijuana
and
Meanwhile Back In Canada, The
Hemp Industry Is Being Reborn
HEMP FARMERS HIGH ON PROFITS
MANITOBA’S HEMP industry is taking off --- BIG TIME.
April 1, 1999
From The Winnipeg Free Press
letters@freepress.mb.ca
http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/freepress/
By Bud Robertson
Last year, 27 farmers planted approximately 1,700 of hemp, the first time the
crop’s been planted commercially in 60 years.
This year, 125 Manitoba farmers are contracted to plant more than 12,000 acres of hemp
seed, said Douglas Campbell, general manager of Consolidated Growers & Processors
Canada.
And with farmers grossing almost $500 an acre, that works out to
an industry worth $6 million in this province alone.
(Marijuananews note: The Canadian dollar is around 65 US cents.)
Across the Prairies, CGP contracted farmers are planting a total of 16,000 acres of
hemp, a 24-fold increase over last year.
"Everybody’s hungry for more money," Campbell said, adding that hemp is bringing in twice as much as some traditional cereal, oilseed and
pulse crops.
Darrell McElroy, a hemp farmer near Darlingford, said he planted 30 acres last year,
but this year he plans to see about 95.
"When I first planted it I didn’t know too much about it, but now I really
think it’s going to go a long way," he said. "With
this product there’s thousands of uses you can do with it. I compare it like buffalo
to an Indian---you use the whole plant for so much……I fell the market is
there."
Campbell said CGP also has offered to purchase to purchase all the hemp seed and stalk
farmers can produce in the next three years.
Hemp is marijuana’s drug-free cousin, but both plants come from the bamboo family.
It has a number of applications, including hemp oil for cooking or burning in
automobile engines and hemp fibre for making clothing, particle board and paper.
See
Cooking Oil And Flour
Produced From Hemp By A Canadian Company
Among Many Hemp Products To Be Available Due North This Year
It is also being used in the production of door panels by some European auto makers.
See
Hemp Blended Into
Auto Parts Shown At Detroit Automotive Engineers Trade Show
Although hemp is grown in a number of countries, most notably France, the Netherlands
and Germany, the total world production of approximately 100,000
acres is less than half of what the market can absorb.
CGP hopes to build a $15 million, 25 employee hemp processing plant in Manitoba.
There are no such facilities in Canada.
All the crop is exported overseas or to the United States for processing.
"We want to do so much processing as possible at the source," Campbell said.
If farmers can get their seeding done in May, this year’s hemp crop should come
off the fields during the second week of September and first week in October.
Supported