Why Don't UK Farmers Grow Hemp?

www.fwi.co.uk...

Mr Langmead confirmed that about 5% of the crop had been taken since the post appeared on Facebook.

“It was growing quite nicely and we weren’t having any trouble.

“We didn’t have any trouble until the weekend when somebody put it on Facebook,” he said.

“We are getting 15-20 kids a day coming in but they can smoke it all they like, they won’t get high.

Not just smoking it but selling it too judging by the amount taken.

Here's word from a farmer in Canada. The strength of the fibres is hard on the machinery. www.fwi.co.uk...

For what it’s worth here are my experiences of Hemp growing here in Canada having grown 160 acres this year for seed.

Here, you have to have a licence from some nice French lady in Quebec from some govt. quango along with police quecks before you can grow, sell and store hemp.

Seed is expensive and no sprays are available so you need a clean seedbed and good establishment, so once started this crop is a fantastic competitor, but does not like wet feet.

Combining can be a problem as it raps arround any shaft it can and so will destroy bearings or go on fire, and if very dry the dust can gather and also burn. So preparation of combine is a must, cover all exposed shafts.

4 growers in this area all had completely differing problems, feeder house chain feeds, rapping arround thrashers, and destroying wobble boxes.

I just cut the seed heads off with the header as high as it would go and got the seed into air bins as soon as possible. It doesn’t ripen evenly so shelling will happen and some green will need attention.

We then swathed the straw (swather now needs repair) and round baled.

Real problems… marketing, the buyers that contracted to you at planting are bust by harvest, no market for the straw as the plant that was being built doesn’t exist and the stuble is just a bed of twine that will be a b… to zerotill.

Also in the same discussion there is mention of a once only attempt that resulted in "all the teenagers in Doncaster" making a visit.

Talk a farmer into it. Get the licence. Censor Facebook. Keep 24 hour guard while the crop matures. Design new machinery that can cope with the tough stems.....
You too can be part of the hemp revolution.

a reply to: Kester

It seems you can only grow hemp in the UK under licence but the sites I've seen are pushing it as a high yield, reliable crop so I don't know why more people aren't doing it. Perhaps it's the association with marijuana or the fact that the crop won't be left in peace by those seeking free weed in the wrong place...

a reply to: djz3ro

Nah, it is legal. Farmers with clean police records can apply for licences to grow it. I just found a farmer blog discussing what infrastructure is around to get going.

www.gov.uk...

You can apply for a license here.

It's not illegal you can buy many hemp products legally in the uk, you can buy Cbd legally too as in most countries. It doesn't get you high, but has some health properties

a reply to: Kester

Why Don't UK Farmers Grow Hemp?

Don't know anything about the UK...

but perhaps it would kill the logging industry?

Are there trees over there? lol

Cool article: The good life: How Glynis Murray brought hemp to the mainstream UK market

But doesn't the crop smell of marijuana?

All their neighbours in Devon know about their hemp growing business, she says, but there was a time once when one of their neighbours needed some fuel for a local bonfire event they were organising and asked to use some of their old bales of hemp straw. Even though the hemp has no narcotic properties at all, the straw does indeed smell very similar to that of marijuana when it burns – and as the bonfire began to burn, there were quite a few people looking at one another – wondering if they were smelling something that reminded them of their distant past, she laughs

How has the company grown?

"We took a while to find the right key products to compliment Good Oil and start to build a brand, but now we have the Oil, the Milk and the Protein," she says. Over the last three years they've grown consistently – an increase in sales of 30pc each year, a £1m-plus turnover and, she says, they are profitable.

a reply to: Akragon

Are there trees over there?

No. We cut them all down to build ships so we could..... I mean some people who happen to share much of the same ancestry as me cut them down to build ships to... you know... control world trade and that sort of thing. Only the ships have all rotted away now so we're back to square one, minus trees.

The local hemp industry used to run nicely alongside the ship building industry supplying ropes and caulking. www.tradboats.com...

Now our 'hemp' rope is made of flax. www.master-ropemakers.co.uk... Which can be grown here without the unique problems associated with hemp. www.flaxland.co.uk...

I would love a pair of hemp slacks, just to screw with the drug dogs at the airport. I am just odd that way.