Producer has good experience with hemp

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

John Ackland heard all the jokes when he decided to try his hand at growing hemp on his farmland.

“The first time I grew it around here, I had lots of guys coming into the shop and laughing, ‘So, you’re growing marijuana, are you?’” he chuckled.

“Now it’s becoming a more common crop around here, and the jokes are long gone,” he said. “People are starting to understand that it’s actually a cash crop. Now, my phone bounces off the wall with people asking how they go about getting contracts to grow hemp. So they realize there is potential out there.”

Commercial hemp production became legal in Canada in 1998, although growers must still be licensed by Health Canada. In 2005, roughly 24,000 acres were seeded to the crop across the country – over one-third of it in Saskatchewan, equally split between conventional and organic production.

The seed from the hemp plant contains an edible oil used for cosmetics and cooking, which has many positive health benefits. It is low in saturated fats, and contains a mixture of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as gamma linolenic acid, a nutraceutical compound.

The fibre from the hemp plant is also very durable, and can be used for making clothing, paper and building materials, although this market is not well-developed in North America.

Ackland says there are a lot of things farmers should learn about producing hemp before they decide to get into it. “You definitely do not grow hemp without a contract to sell it with a company,” he noted. “You can get hung out to dry on it. You can end up with that product for years until there’s a shortage in the industry and they put out an advertised call for it.”

Ackland stated that the buyers from the processing companies also serve as excellent sources of advice for hemp growers. “They just don’t turn you loose without any support. They continue to provide you with support along the way, because it is a different crop. It’s not like you’re growing a different variety of wheat. It’s a lot different than that,” he said.

Ackland says there are plenty of surprises and learning experiences for first-time hemp growers. The height of the plant is something that will astonish most producers. “It grows tremendously fast. It will grow a foot a week. I have plants out there that are six or seven feet tall,” he noted.

Patience is also an important virtue for hemp growers. “The window of opportunity for seeding it is between May 15 and June 15, and it is much wiser to seed the crop well into June,” Ackland stated. “Even though it is listed in terms of days to maturity, that isn’t how it matures. It’s a photosensitive plant, so if you seed it too early, you just end up with an awfully tall plant.”

There are no insecticides, herbicides or fungicides approved for use on the crop. “In the spring of the year, you could do a burn-off with Roundup before you seed it, but once you seed it, you’re done,” said Ackland.

“Hemp is a very high nitrogen user, however, and unless you’re going organic, you have to put a lot of nitrogen and phosphorous in the ground. Otherwise, you end up with a disaster of a crop.”

Ackland pointed out that hemp can be very temperamental to harvest, requiring some specialized equipment or modifications to standard implements. “The plant tends to wrap around the shafts of a combine, and it’s a very tough fibre. Every time you stop to dump a hopper, you get in the habit of jumping off and cutting hemp off the external shafts of the combine,” he noted.

“When you take it off, you have to take it off tough. It’s not a crop you can go out and combine 150 acres a day, because you couldn’t handle the seed coming off. You have to air it down, you have to dry it.”

Despite these challenges, Ackland says his foray into hemp has been well worth the effort, and he will definitely be continuing. Although it’s a fairly new industry with some growing pains, Ackland says the hemp market is expanding, attracting greater interest from farmers.

At current prices, Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food projects that break-even yields for conventional and organic hemp production are 10 and five bushels per acre, respectively. Ackland estimates his crop yielded 20 bushels an acre this year. “It’s the only crop I know of that has a decent profit margin,” he said.

For more information, call:

John Ackland
Phone: (306) 734-2246