Hemp growers met in Carman last week to discuss the potential for a hemp research and promotion agency.
Don Dewar, a farmer from Dauphin and a director with the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA), says if formed, the organization would have a national scope and would be funded through a check-off to provide more research and promotion for hemp.
"We're proposing it would be 0.3 per cent of the sale," Dewar says, "so whatever the value of your sale of hemp grain or fibre, it would then be sent to be checked-off by the purchaser, and forwarded to the CHTA, which would be the holding body, but not the administrator. (The research and promotion agency) would be a group of farmers, whether they were board members of CHTA or selected somehow differently — we haven't finalized that process, but it would be a full agreement of farmers of where that money would be spent."
Dewar, who has grown hemp for over 18 years, says there is a lot of potential for the crop.
"There's lots of room for more promotion and research on growing, on health benefits, food benefits, market development," he says, "perhaps it could be another Cinderella crop like canola was 50 years ago."
Source : Steinbachonline