In mid-March, health minister Allan Rock traveled to the southwest Ontario heartland of tobacco country to announce that industrial hemp will be Canada’s newest farm crop this year.
At Tillsonburg, headquarters for the flue-cured tobacco industry, Rock said prospective growers will be able to apply for licences now to get a spring crop into the ground.
“This new crop has a tremendous potential for creating new jobs in agriculture, industry, research and retail,” he said.
On Parliament Hill, Reform MPs greeted the news with jokes about it being part of Rock’s “rural strategy” for his anticipated bid to win the Liberal Party leadership some day.
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But in Western Canada where promoters say some of the best potential lies, there were predictions that hemp could quickly become a multi-million dollar crop.
Representatives for hemp processing companies noted that Canada has acted before the United States to approve growing the crop, even though there is a large demand in the U.S. for hemp products. They predicted that Canada could supply much of the American demand.
In a joint statement from several of the companies, Doug Brown of Westhemp Enterprises in Vancouver said the market for industrial hemp products is projected to triple to $600 million by 2001.
“With its massive agricultural land base, Canada is poised to reap the bulk of these sales,” said Brown, who specializes in helping Alberta and British Columbia farmers get licences and seeds this year.
Industrial hemp can be used to make products as varied as rope, construction materials, paper, food, twine, plastics and biofuel.
According to rules published by Health Canada, importers and exporters will have to be licenced and have a permit for each shipment.
Seed growers will be limited to plots of 0.4 hectares and will have to be members of the Canadian Seed Growers Association.
Check your record
Anyone applying to work in the industry as a grower, a processor, exporter or importer will have to clear a police check.
And importers and exporters will have to provide proof that the product does not contain enough active ingredient to make it a drug.
Growing industrial hemp was outlawed in 1938 because it is a member of the cannabis family of plants which includes marijuana.
However, the industrial variety has too little of the active ingredient THC to have an effect on users.
