Below is the the Macquarie 2100 submission to the federal government’s Agricultural White Paper.
So far it’s had plenty of positive feedback, if it’s something you think should be happening please email Ag minister Barnaby Joyce to show your support, as well as any other MPs from all parties.
Email Barnaby Joyce
Governments generally need a very broad-based groundswell of support to think about making changes of this magnitude, a lot of correspondence being emailed to politicians is a good start.
Recent feedback indicates that we could possibly look at using 3D technology to ‘print’ hemp bricks, by simply establishing a manufacturing plant, maybe portable in a shipping container, where the raw material on farm is run through a printer to create building blocks.
Currently we ship so much of our commodity output straight to other countries and let them garner the profits from value adding, the advent of 3D printing should enable us to convert the versatile industrial hemp crop into a multitude of products, all done on farm or certainly in the local area.
We need to keep jobs locals by utilising our products in the local area.
Already an Australian company has built a harvester which they claim can process the bulk of the crop while it’s being cut, here’s some of the comments from an email exchange:
‘That twine can be used in the composite industry to make thousands of different products. This will replace fibre glass rovings.
That same mill can have an system for making a mat of hemp fibre to replace fibre glass chopped mats.
We would do the harvesting with our harvesting decorticator. Or we could consider selling one to a group of hemp farmers working in a co-operative.
Products made with hemp will be recyclable. I know you understand the environmental impact of that.
Hemp grows with far less water than many other irrigated crops, it grows ideally with Organic and Biodynamic methods and powerfully carbon fixes when doing so. This literally grows topsoil.
It requires no to toxic chemicals.
It will yield up to 1 tonne of grain per hectare.
7 tonnes of Hurd for building products and insulation.
3 tonnes of fibre for either composites or textiles.’
The profits which could be generated by this industry are potentially enormous, with a large percentage of that coming straight back to the grower.
Feel free to pass this submission to as broad an audience as possible, the more people we have rattling the chain on this issue the more chance we have of success.
Some other interesting feedback from my comment that one of industrial hemp's biggest perception dramas is having to deal with the name 'hemp', one bloke pointed out that canola started gaining a much better market share after changing its name from rapeseed.
Perception goes a long way in these sorts of debates, let’s start giving the politicians a solid perception that a viable industrial hemp industry is desperately wanted and needed to help reinvigorate regional NSW.
If you need further information from M2100 contact John Ryan on 0429 452 245 or email
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