FARMERS GIVE HEMP THE OLD HEAVE-HO

Ontario farmers are abandoning hemp. The drug-free version of marijuana was
being touted a few years ago as a kind of miracle crop, a lucrative and
easy-growing alternative to tobacco. Growers cite an undeveloped processing
sector as well as theft and vandalism by misguided drug lovers as their
main reasons for abandoning the experimental crop.

"Hemp, like a lot of other new crops, is going through a lot of growing
pains," said Mike Columbus, a crop diversification specialist with the
agriculture ministry's Simcoe office.

Health Canada, which oversees hemp-growing projects, reports production
dropped this year, from more than 1,000 hectares grown last year in Ontario
to 216 this year. Much of the drop is attributed to a lack of processing
systems and market.

There was once a great deal of hope attached to hemp in agriculture. A
60-year ban on growing the non-hallucinogenic variety of the marijuana
plant was lifted in 1998.

Hemp contains barely detectable traces of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the
ingredient that makes pot smokers high.

Hemp is highly valued around the world because of its strength and can be
used in building supplies, paper, cement, wood, rope, sailcloth, and clothing.

Its seed is an excellent health food.

But the hope has faded, although some say only for a while.

Columbus noted, "The acreage locally, in Haldimand-Norfolk, Brant,
Hamilton-Wentworth is very low because the people who are processing this
are in southwestern Ontario and the transportation costs to move the straw
are too high."

And some farmers have encountered worse trouble than high transportation costs.

Vandalism convinced a Stoney Creek farmer to bail out last year.

Larry Davis, in Brant, is one of the few surviving local growers, but
vandalism and a fading market nearly drove him to give it up.

His 10 acres of closely guarded hemp is his way of keeping the dream alive.

"Last year it went by the wayside because there were no processors to deal
with it," Davis said.

"But I said we have to keep it in the public eye, just for interest's sake.

"This has big potential, not just for agriculture but for the whole economy
of Canada.

"The car companies claim that everything on the inside of a car can be made
with hemp. It can replace cotton and pulp.

"Now you have a sense of what we're up against."

Competition has also picked up.

Until this year Canadian growers could export their product to the United
States with no other North American competition.

This spring, four U.S. states lifted their hemp-growing bans, Columbus said.

Hemp is still grown on 4,500 hectares in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and
those crops are finding their way into the Ontario market.

Establishing a domestic hemp market must also overcome the obstacles of the
global marketplace, where Third World countries can use cheap labour on
cheaper land and import into North America.

But competition aside, as Davis laments, "we've lost 60 years of technology."

And if hemp is to have any kind of future in Canada, the development of
that technology is critical.

Columbus said while growing hemp for fibre requires the creation of a whole
new infrastructure, the use of hemp seed does hold some, shorter term, promise.

On the Internet, there are ads for hemp tortilla chips, hemp pate, even
hemp ice cream.

Ongoing research into hemp is proof that the plant's heyday could still arrive.

"The whole hemp thing grew very quickly. It was quite a leap and it's been
said before, you've got to learn to walk before you run," Columbus said.

"We have to develop specialized equipment to take the place of cheap
labour. It's only the beginning."