"With little hype, hemp
is taking root in southern Ontario as an alternate cash crop…
This year, hemp also qualified for crop insurance…
It was a nice stamp of legitimacy for the industry, so early in commercial
production."
(Marijuananews note: This strikes me as being an
important milestone for hemp in North America. There will be problems ramping up
production, but it is now clear that hemp can be grown profitably in Canada, and DEAland
has a longer growing season.
DEAland farmers are not going to be left out of the hemp business.- RC)
See
Canadians Find That
Hemp Fields Are No Rose Garden.
Starting A New Crop Has Many Complications
and
Consolidated Growers
And Processors Delivers 100 Tons Of Hemp Seed To Manitoba
Via World’s Largest Cargo Plane
July 20, 1999
From The London Ontario Free Press
letters@lfpress.com
http://www.canoe.ca/LondonFreePress/home.html
http://www.lfpress.com/londoncalling/SelectForum.asp
By Kelley Teahen
HEMP CROP GAINS GROUND
1,200 Hectares Being Grown For Processing At Two Area Plants
With little hype, hemp is taking root in southern Ontario as an alternate cash crop.
It was only last summer that Canada reversed a 60-year ban on the plant, whose kinship
to drug-producing marijuana had led to its prohibition.
This summer, about 1,200 hectares of hemp are being grown in southern Ontario to be
sold to two hemp-fibre processing plants in the area.
Harvest of the fibrous stalks should start by early August—but first, licensed
agronomists will hit hemp fields in the next two weeks, testing if crops exceed the 0.3
per cent limit set by Health Canada for THC, the active ingredient in hemp’s cousin
plant, marijuana. As well, testers from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will do spot
checks of hemp crops.
Any crop with more than the allowed trace of THC must be
destroyed.
"It’s always going to be a controlled crop," says
Robert L’Ecuyer, general manager of Kentex Ltd. of Chatham, which processes hemp.
"It won’t always be as stringent as it is now, but we need to get a level of
comfort."
Last summer, inspectors found only a few fields where hemp THC exceeded the government
limits, set when hemp-growing became legal last year. All were traced to a particular
variety, Secuiene, which has been removed from the varieties approved by Health Canada.
Chatham-Kent’s Kenex has about 800 hectares growing this summer, mostly in Kent
County, while Delaware’s Hempline has contracted for about 400 hectares from farmers
in Elgin, Middlesex, Perth, Oxford and Lambeth counties.
It should be a bumper crop, says Hempline’s president, Geof Kime.
"We’ve had lots of heat, broken with period of moisture," says Kime, who
also worked with authorized test fields of hemp grown in southern Ontario from 1994 to
1997. "This should be the best we’ve had in our six years."
This year, hemp also qualified for crop insurance.
"Innovative farmers are willing to try new crops, if they can have insurance to
mitigate the risk," Kime says. "It was a nice stamp of legitimacy for the
industry, so early in commercial production."
Kenex’s focus is the auto industry, where hemp fibres are being used to make auto
parts.
Hempline separates out the long, slender outer hemp fires for use in
textiles—primarily for carpet and upholstery fabrics. The company has also found
success with its "hemp chips"—horse bedding made from the stalk core.
"As fast as we can produce it, it’s moving out the door," he says.
Now that hemp is legal and grown more widely, it’s less plagued by
"two-legged pests"—Kime’s term for people who think hemp is marijuana
and decide to steal plants from farm fields.
"In 1997, we had one field where the two-legged pests were a problem, but no one
came after that. They must have discovered hemp didn’t have what they were looking
for."
Copyright: 1999 The London Free Press a division of Sun Media Corporation.
See
Ventura Signs Bill
Seeking Federal Permission To Cultivate Hemp
Supported