EnviromediaNews

Hemp holds hope for women farmers

Twenty hectares of industrial hemp will be planted in the Eastern Cape this summer in the first commercial trials since the government committed itself to establishing a local hemp industry more than 10 years ago.

The trials are part of the newly launched Hemp Project, a combined effort by government, business and community organisations to uplift emerging women farmers.

The project, which will include the manufacture and marketing of hemp products as well as cultivation, is expected to create 87 sustainable jobs this year, and thousands more as hemp production expands.

Spokesperson for the project Dr Thandeka Kunene, a long-time hemp advocate and owner of the House of Hemp retail outlet in Gauteng, said the industry had the potential to provide work for 200,000 women in a few years time.

“Next year, we expect to expand commercial production to at least 10,000 ha”, she said. “And the year after that, even more.”

Until local farmers are able to produce enough hemp for processing into fibre and oils, the manufacturing side of the project will depend on imported material.

The hemp project has been delayed for years by legislation which fails to differentiate between industrial hemp and narcotic strains of the cannabis plant.

The commercial trials will be strictly controlled by government agencies which insist that the widespread cultivation of hemp will contribute to drug abuse, although the level of psychoactive ingredients in the industrial strain are insignificant.

Hemp has many environmental advantages over other sources of fibre – it requires a fraction of the water, pesticides and herbicides used in cotton cultivation and in one growing season, it can produce four times the amount of celluose per ha as a pine plantation does in seven years.

Hemp is one of the first plants every domesticated by humans.

The word “canvas” is a corruption of “cannabis” and the Dutch and Afrikaans word for “shirt” reflects the plant’s historic importance as fabric for clothing.

Over the past 10 years, a number of countries have lifted their restrictions on the cultivation of industrial hemp, and the crop is now grown widely in the Far East, Europe and Canada. – enviromedianews