The hemp plant, notorious for drug use in modern society, is about to get a new image as a source of paper and textiles that could reduce the nation's current account deficit.
Hemp, also known as cannabis or marijuana, has been raised for thousands of years as an agricultural crop, but has been mainly known in this country as an illegal drug crop.
However, it is now being increasingly tested as a secondary cash crop for farmers.
If the tests are successful, hemp could provide not only a new fabric fibre but also a significant import replacement for the current $1.5 billion paper pulp imported annually.
The South Australian Government will next week plant the first of a trial cannabis crop, potentially for use as fabric, oil and paper.
The South Australian Government has been the first mainland State to permit the controlled growth of the plant, with the State's Health Department in March issuing a 12 month licence under Controlled Substances Act granting permission for a three-trial crops to be plotted by the Yorke Regional Development Board in the north and the south of the State.
Although grown extensively for commercial use in Europe, France, Russia, India and China, the only Australian hemp fibre grown legally has been in a three-year test in Tasmania.
That State is still testing it.
The Victorian government is expected to follow suit next month, approving licences for field trials of hemp during the next two or three years.
Yesterday the West Australian Government said it has appointed a committee to examine the feasibility of a hemp industry of its own.
Paper producers say it could be a viable alternative to wood.
The technical manager for Australian Newsprint Mills (which produces 65% of Australia's newsprint), Mr Len Johnson, said hemp showed "considerable potential" as an alternative paper-pulp source.
Mr Johnson said ANM had been experimenting with pulping.
He said ANM expected to buy "only" one tonne of locally produced hemp to process as pulp paper.
"But there are also other short-term crops that also have to examined which may not have as much sex appeal as hemp," Mr Johnson said.
But he said successful hemp production would require a long-term, large-scale operation.
"It would have to produce at least 250,000 tonnes per year," he said.
The Yorke Regional Development Board in South Australia in late March imported six varieties of hemp seeds from France to be planted at staggered intervals in the next 12 months.
The seeds are under guard at the Primary Industries of South Australia's seed services laboratory.
Senior seed analyst Ms Heather Lawrie said that before being given "the all clear" the seeds were tested for "nasties" that could have been introduced into the South Australian agricultural industry.
Proponents say hemp paper is stronger and more flexible than wood, less expensive and more environmentally sound. While wood pulp paper is bleached with chlorine, hemp is bleached with hydrogen peroxide, said to be safer.
The chief executive officer of the Yorke Regional Development Board, Mr Paul Fitzgerald, said the demand for hemp fibre was increasing because of a world shortage of fibre and the fact that hemp competed "favorably" with cotton as a fibre, producing up to three times more fibre than cotton without the need for an intensive irrigation and pest control program.
But as well as the commercial and practical uses of hemp, there is the narcotic use which caused the plant to be prohibited around the world since the 1930's because of the psychotropic component known as tetrahydrocannabinol- THC.
Dr Nevile Mendham, a senior lecturer in agronomy at the University of Tasmania, which has been conducting field tests on marijuana for three years, said hemp was seen to be "economically viable and sustainable."
 |
|  |
 |
|