‘Companies look to use hemp in other products:’ according to Farming Smarter official

An interesting topic covered during Thursday’s farming conference was the production of hemp. According to an official with Farming Smarter, Alberta farmers have been growing hemp for the last ten years and it’s primarily used for industrial purposes. Mike Gretzinger with Farming Smarter says companies have been looking at using hemp for other products as well.

“We’ve seen hemp go from something that’s like way out there to something that is real and viable at this point in time. So we were looking at company that’s doing these bio epoxy-based resins for their commercial technology for different products and things like that. We have multiple processing plants here now in Alberta, most of them in Central and Northern Alberta. They are starting to do things like hempcrete, they are starting to use, starting to replace some of the oil and gas products and paper products with hemp-based fibers,” said Mike Gretzinger, Research Coordinator with Farming Smarter.

Gretzinger says Southern Alberta alone has around 20 thousand acres of hemp.