June 2008

ARDI SUPPORTS HEMP PROJECTS IN DAUPHIN

WINNIPEG, JUNE 23, 2008 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARDI Council is granting $102,700 to two Dauphin-area projects that will support Manitoba’s growing hemp industry.  

“ARDI’s total investment in hemp is nearly $600,000 over 10 years,” says ARDI Chair David Gislason. “The benefits to Manitoba’s hemp industry can be clearly seen today.”

Since the 1998 removal of a 60-year old ban on growing industrial hemp in Canada, ARDI research has played a pivotal role in shaping the industry’s development. One of the early concerns with growing hemp for food related to THC – the psychoactive drug found in marijuana. ARDI-funded researchers demonstrated that even when subjects ate foods containing hemp every day for 10 days, they were extremely unlikely to fail workplace drug tests because of the low levels of THC found in industrial hemp. 

Since that time, ARDI funds have continued to support the growth of this emerging industry. The Parkland Industrial Hemp Growers’ plant breeding program, for example, has been able to register several new varieties, starting with Alyssa in 2004 and Delores and Petera in 2007. Petera has huge potential for the fibre processing industry because it seems able to produce a large amount of biomass on an annual basis.   

The two new grants will build on these successes. First, a $55,000 grant will allow the Parkland Industrial Hemp Growers to continue to improve these new varieties and will also examine a heritage variety whose origins can be traced back hundreds of years. Researchers hope 18^th century genetics will hold the key to allowing farmers to plant hemp in the fall for harvest the following summer.  

Second, Coldstream Alfalfa Processing received $47,700 over two years to take a mothballed alfalfa pelleting plant and turn it into a pilot processing plant to produce biomass pellets. Hemp hurd, the wood-like inner core fibre of the hemp plant, will be one of the fibres tested for this project. 

If the testing shows that the pellets burn and heat efficiently, Manitobans will have an environmentally-friendly replacement fuel for coal. Manitoba is home to 11 stove manufacturers and biomass pellets are currently shipped in from out-of-province to meet demand.  

ARDI awarded $1,132,829 in grants in its last funding round. The full list of projects, including the two highlighted here, can be found at www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/research/ardi 

ARDI is a research and development granting program of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives. It is funded through the Agricultural Policy Framework, a federal-provincial-territorial action plan for agriculture. 

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For more information, contact: 

Lori-Ann Kaminski, ARDI Program Officer
204 745-5637

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