Australian Hemp Council
The Australian Hemp Council is a seven-member national peak body made up of a single representative from the local industrial hemp association within each of our nation’s six states and the Northern Territory.
Hemp: Good by Nature!
Agriculture
Australian farmers are within grasp of one of the greatest opportunities in Australian agriculture if our government could relax restrictions on ‘whole of plant’ use. Hemp is an emerging crop that ticks many boxes.
- It’s a crop that can be grown in all parts of Australia.
- It’s a low input crop that benefits the soil structure and biota
- It has rapidly emerging innovative markets for its many applications.
- It is a superior carbon sequestrator
- It is a versatile crop that can be wholly utilised, thus spreading market risk.
If you’re an Australian farmer looking to improve your land and grow a highly sustainable crop or just want to learn how to grow hemp, then follow our newsletter and stay up to date with all current hemp news and updates across Australia.
Health
Hemp is arguably one of the most important superfoods in the world, with hemp seeds providing us with an invaluable source of protein, essential fatty acids and Omega 3 & 6 plus much more. Hemp has long been used as a food source and it is vital we reintroduce this back into our diets.
Hemp is able to replace the modern diet’s inflammatory fatty acids with the prefect balance of essential fatty acids bringing our system into balance.
Research has shown that to improve cardiovascular health we need to lower blood pressure, raise HDL cholesterol and reduce triglyceride levels.
Hemp seed and hemp oil in our food can contribute directly to these health gains.
Click here to download “Hempseed as a nutritional resource” – a 2004 study into the benefits of hemp seed.
Environment
Hemp has modest water requirements when growing, producing a fibre which is strong and long lasting as well as mould and bacteria resistant.
Hemp is said to sequester four times as much carbon as a standard pine forest and grows much quicker. Carbon is above all the most important and effective factor on plant growth and life and hemp rapidly stores carbon into the soil increasing the soil productivity.
Hemp is also a bioaccumulator and can be used for phytoremediation by extracting heavy metals and other toxins from contaminated soils.
Trials conducted in Germany and Italy show that hemp biomass grown on contaminated soils can be safely used in construction materials.
Hemp has over 25,000 uses and hemp plastics are becoming a popular alternative to our global issue of plastic pollution.
Mick Andersen is the founder and owner of Good Country Hemp Pty. Ltd, a hemp foods processing facility based in Bordertown, South Australia. Good Country Hemp contract hemp growers directly, primarily in SA, and have processing lines for cold pressed hemp seed oil and hulled hemp seed, marketed online and through supermarket and health food stores.They also supply bulk hemp food products.
Tim is president of the Australian Hemp Council and has been farming in Tasmania for the past 20 years. In 2003 the family purchased Woodlands a 350ha farm near Deloraine in Northern Tasmania. Primarily a beef trading and dairy agistment farm they also grow potatoes and hemp.
Our Top 5 Cultivars have been developed without genetic modification to grow and thrive in most regions of Australia.
Gail Stubber is the Executive Officer of the WA Hemp Growers’ Co-op which she and six other farmers started in 2018. She lives on a small multiuse farm of 40 ha in the South West of WA. She is presently running sheep, growing finger limes and hemp.
Jaimie Milling is a fourth-generation farmer who has been in the agriculture industry all his life.
