Yesterday, we posted about how Hemp Resources, that recently conducted hemp trials in China, also concluded additional trials in its native Australia. Well, last night, the managing director and CEO of Hemp Resources dropped us a line with some additional insight into just how well the Australian trials went. Kim wrote:
The trials in Kununurra have been extremely promising to date and we’ve just managed to locate a decorticator for processing and separation of the fibre and hurd.
We’ve also produced over 6,000 kgs of parentage seed for re-planting next season so there’s an air of excitement about next season with the ability to process on a large scale, a real key factor.
So it truly does seem that whether or not there’s a change in Australian hemp laws (it is legal to grow industrial hemp, but not to consume it) hemp, Hemp Resources will be moving right ahead with another crop. More importantly, they have secured the resources process the fibers. That should significantly reduce the cost of selling the hemp for fiber.
Normally, the costs associated with having to outsource the fiber production and then ship the fibers to an additional third party can be rather high, especially on a continent as isolated as Australia. By processing the hemp themselves, however, Hemp Resources would seriously be cutting down on the volume of material that needs to be shipped — not to mention the total distance over which their crop has to travel before being ready to go to market.