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Ed Hanbidge farms 40ac of hemp at the foothills of the Keadeen Mountain in Co Wicklow.
Speaking with the Irish Farmers Journal this week, Hanbidge described his experience growing the crop on Irish soil.
“Hemp is a relatively easy crop to grow, especially after it has developed its canopy. Three weeks in the soil, the crop generally has beat the surrounding weeds and has developed its protective leafy cover."
“Preparation of the soil for sowing is typical to that of any common tillage crop. Slurry, plough, roll, harrow and finally sow your hemp seeds. A major issue we have experienced is crows eating the crops, they’ve developed a taste for it. They are the only devils you need to watch for,” he says.
“The crop can be slow to get going, it needs a bit of heat at the start. You can expect your crop to reach around one foot in height after a month in the soil. By the time we open the gate to harvest, it has grown to four feet.”
“We harvest our crop using a combine for the seeds and we bale the hemp straw afterward. The seed can be made into various products such as milled hemp or oil. The straw usually goes to bed cattle,” Hanbridge explains.
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"The crop's versatility is unmatched, but unfortunately here in Ireland we haven’t the infrastructure to make hemp growing profitable yet.
"Even when your crop succeeds in the field, you still fail when it comes to making money on it," he says.
“At the minute we buy our seed for €400/t and sow half a tonne to the acre. For baled hemp straw we receive €250/acre so the profits are non-existent after you allow for money spent preparing the land and generating the end product.”
“We need between a €10-20 million investment in infrastructure from the Government before we can make hemp growing in Ireland profitable.”
Industrial hemp
Teagasc, in association with GlasTeo, hosted the first Irish industrial hemp summit last week at the Ashtown Food Research Centre, in Co Dublin.
This cash crop is a strain of the Cannabis sativa plant species, which can be grown for over 50,000 different products including paper, clothing, biodegradable plastics, insulation, biofuel, food, skincare and animal feed.
Although cannabis is a drug and industrial hemp also derives from the same species, they contain much different levels of the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Hemp has lower concentrations of THC and higher concentrations of cannabidiol (CBD), which eliminates its psychoactive effects.
Licence
A licence from the Health Products Regulation Authority (HPRA) is needed to grow hemp in Ireland.
“Over 77 applications have been received this year so far, with 373ha planted. Fifty-one of these applications included Finola seed, up from a total of just seven applications made in 2016,” said Emer O’Neill, HPD manager with the HPRA.
Ed Hanbidge farms 40ac of hemp at the foothills of the Keadeen Mountain in Co Wicklow.
Speaking with the Irish Farmers Journal this week, Hanbidge described his experience growing the crop on Irish soil.
“Hemp is a relatively easy crop to grow, especially after it has developed its canopy. Three weeks in the soil, the crop generally has beat the surrounding weeds and has developed its protective leafy cover."
“Preparation of the soil for sowing is typical to that of any common tillage crop. Slurry, plough, roll, harrow and finally sow your hemp seeds. A major issue we have experienced is crows eating the crops, they’ve developed a taste for it. They are the only devils you need to watch for,” he says.
“The crop can be slow to get going, it needs a bit of heat at the start. You can expect your crop to reach around one foot in height after a month in the soil. By the time we open the gate to harvest, it has grown to four feet.”
“We harvest our crop using a combine for the seeds and we bale the hemp straw afterward. The seed can be made into various products such as milled hemp or oil. The straw usually goes to bed cattle,” Hanbridge explains.
Price
"The crop's versatility is unmatched, but unfortunately here in Ireland we haven’t the infrastructure to make hemp growing profitable yet.
"Even when your crop succeeds in the field, you still fail when it comes to making money on it," he says.
“At the minute we buy our seed for €400/t and sow half a tonne to the acre. For baled hemp straw we receive €250/acre so the profits are non-existent after you allow for money spent preparing the land and generating the end product.”
“We need between a €10-20 million investment in infrastructure from the Government before we can make hemp growing in Ireland profitable.”
Industrial hemp
Teagasc, in association with GlasTeo, hosted the first Irish industrial hemp summit last week at the Ashtown Food Research Centre, in Co Dublin.
This cash crop is a strain of the Cannabis sativa plant species, which can be grown for over 50,000 different products including paper, clothing, biodegradable plastics, insulation, biofuel, food, skincare and animal feed.
Although cannabis is a drug and industrial hemp also derives from the same species, they contain much different levels of the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Hemp has lower concentrations of THC and higher concentrations of cannabidiol (CBD), which eliminates its psychoactive effects.
Licence
A licence from the Health Products Regulation Authority (HPRA) is needed to grow hemp in Ireland.
“Over 77 applications have been received this year so far, with 373ha planted. Fifty-one of these applications included Finola seed, up from a total of just seven applications made in 2016,” said Emer O’Neill, HPD manager with the HPRA.
