HEMP FOOD BONANZA ON STATE MENU

TASMANIA could become one of the world's top food hemp-growing regions if
meetings between producers and the State Government this week are fruitful.

Starting today, major hemp producers are assessing trial crops of
revolutionary varieties in the south of the state with a view to setting up
large-scale hemp farms and a hemp-food factory.

Australian Hemp Foods, a partnership between Queensland-based Australian
Hemp Resource and Manufacturer and the European Hemp Food Association, has
already toured Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

And a Hemp Tasmania co-operative society has already signed up Tasmanian
farmers, with registration of the group under way.

Although hemp is already grown for cosmetics and oils in Australia, it is
illegal to use the crop for food products.

But the European Hemp Food Association's Paul Benhaim, a director of
Australian Hemp Foods, said he hoped the Federal Government, with the
Australian and New Zealand Food Authority, was close to repealing the law.

The industrial hemp strains contain virtually none of the hallucinogenic
chemical THC and can be used for a biodegradable plastic as well as in
healthy food products.

"In Australia, we needed to develop strains that were conducive to our
environmental conditions and we have found Tasmania has the perfect
conditions for our Australian cultivar (variety)," Mr Benhaim said.

He said European health food stores, petrol stations and chain stores
stocked a wide variety of hemp-food products.

The 9bar, which he has promoted, is one of the most popular snack bars to
be made from the nutty-tasting hemp seed, which is valued for containing
essential fatty acids, including the much-vaunted Omega 9.

Mr Benhaim said he and AHRM director Phillip Warner would be talking with
Tasmania's Department of State Development this week.

He said its support was a crucial factor in deciding whether to launch
production in Tasmania, which would share in a market worth billions of
dollars.

AHRM has bred the new strains, using no artificial genetics.

"In the UK, the Hemp Food Industries Association has been involved for
nearly a decade, exporting to nine countries," Mr Benhaim said. "I see
Australia as having the potential to supply those markets."