ST-ISIDORE SEED DEALER EXPERIMENTING WITH HEMP

"Grow Hemp for the War, " says a World War II ad found on the back of a
1943 map of Iowa. More than 60 years down the road, hemp is back, for
another type of combat: the one against high energy prices and
agri-food multinationals.

Marc Bercier grows hemp on the lower part of a field behind his
St-Isidore seed cleaning facility. He's testing 100 varieties and
hopes to soon find the right one to produce vegetable oil and market
it as a Canadian substitute for virgin olive oil.

"I'm anti-multinationals," Bercier says, standing inside a container
housing his new oil press. The German-made press will allow him to
extract oil for human consumption from hemp and camiline (false flax)
seeds, both very rich in Omega-3s.

The press can also extract oil from soybeans, which can be used as a
green fuel. One day, a soybean-burning co-generator will provide all
the electricity and heat required to dry grain and operate the Marc
Bercier Seed Cleaning Center.

Bercier's tractors and combine could also run on soybean oil. No big
company will get rich off his diesel bill anymore.

Like his neighbours that grow cash crops, Bercier is currently
enjoying very high grain prices. But along with them have come sharp
price increases for farm inputs like fuel, fertilizer, herbicides and
pesticides. These products are all controlled by large multinationals,
Bercier notes.

Bercier's main business is in itself an everyday combat against the
Monsantos and Pioneers (DuPont) of this world, that own the patents
over genetically modified (GMO) seeds. Bercier successfully grows and
markets non-GMO seeds, competing against much larger feed companies
and co-ops that resell GMO seeds and the weed- and pest-control
chemicals that come along.

Grain prices could drop again as soon a in a year of two, but high
input prices are there to stay, Bercier predicts.

"We can't control much the price we are paid for our farm products,
but we can control our farm operating costs," he says. One way of
achieving this is to produce your own fuel.

Locally Processed

Making hemp oil locally for Eastern Canada markets would make good
environmental sense, Bercier says. Importing vegetable oils from far
away generates greenhouse gases, just like trucking out Eastern
Ontario's farm products for processing elsewhere.

Processing more of our farm products locally would put more money into
farmer's pockets and less in those of fuel and transportation
companies, he says.

Eastern Ontario's warm and humid summer weather makes the region an
ideal spot for growing hemp. Last year's crop grew over 12 feet tall,
stuffing the combine with too much fibre.

"The perfect hemp will be a small plant with a lot of seed," Bercier
says.

Trials on his property are conducted by Arthur McElroy, of PhytoGene
Resources, in Orleans.

McElroy is an expert in plant breeding. He works mostly with hemp and
oats.

Once one of his varieties has acquired all the desirable qualities, he
"patents" them as his own, to eventually collect royalties every time
they will be sold to farmers.

Plant breeding is pretty simple: you pick the plants that best meet
the characteristics you are looking for and put them in the same field
the following year. The "recurrent selection" process can go on for
about five years until satisfactory uniformity is achieved.

The ideal seed-producing hemp would be five-feet tall, with two feet
of seeds, McElroy said.

Hemp fiber does have a lot of commercial potential, just like in war
times when it was needed for ship cables and soldier uniforms.
According to McElroy, it makes good animal bedding.

However, in this case, Bercier and McElroy are looking for high seed
yields. Hemp seeds hold 25 to 30 percent protein. A Toronto company
making energy bars has already partnered up with McElroy. As for
Bercier, he wants to market his own brand of hemp oil as a
locally-made, highly nutritious product.

Using hemp oil on your salad or for your stir-fry won't give you a
buzz, Bercier warns. You may also be disappointed if you smoke some
the hemp from his fields. It holds about 0.1 percent THC
(tetrahydrocannabinol), the hallucinogenic substance in marijuana.

The hemp Bercier grows is "exactly the same plant as marijuana,"
McElroy said.

To get a Health Canada license to grow hemp, one must agree to grow
varieties with less than 0.3 THC. An application must be filed every
year for each site and each variety. During the growth season, the
farmer has to send in samples to a government-approved lab.

The whole bureaucracy takes time, but McElroy says government concerns
are not to hard to address.

Bercier says he's had more trouble with the police than with local
youths plucking some of his hemp. He told The Review the Hawkesbury
OPP detachment once pulled a prank on the other Eastern Ontario
detachments, claiming it had made the biggest-ever marijuana bust.

The following day, Ottawa-area policemen paid Bercier a visit, leaving
him with no choice but some uncomfortable explaining to do.

By growing hemp, Bercier may actually be helping the police and his
farming neighbours. According to him, through cross-pollenation,
low-THC hemp contaminates real marijuana with a three-kilometre
radius, taking away all the buzz you could get from smoking it or
selling it for big bucks.