{"id":581704,"date":"2026-08-27T07:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T07:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/581704\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T07:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T07:12:08","slug":"industrial-hemp-sector-wants-more-seed-in-the-ground-across-new-zealand-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/581704\/","title":{"rendered":"Industrial hemp sector wants more seed in the ground across New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

The industrial hemp sector wants smaller, non-commercial growers to give the crop a go to drive innovation and demand.<\/p>\n

New Zealand Hemp Industries Association chief executive Richard Barge said the group\u2019s project was about growing the industry, in terms of people\u2019s understanding of the plant and its possibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis opportunity is where innovation can really happen in that cottage industry or at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can now use the hemp that they grow and use that to make products and develop new technology to process or manufacture those products.\u201d<\/p>\n

A seed farmer from Canterbury is making the European-bred and Aotearoa-acclimatised cultivar Kompolti available for small-scale use domestically, in addition to supplying larger commercial entities.<\/p>\n

Barge said growers wanted to help pull the industry forward.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The project] is all exciting for the industry because that\u2019s going to create conversations around where it can go and what it can be used for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hemp is used globally across a wide range of industries, including food, fibre and clothing, health and wellness, horticulture and as hempcrete in construction.<\/p>\n

However, Barge said some hemp products were commercially restricted in Aotearoa, including its use in animal feed and in natural health products.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still challenges with the value chain. We still face some hurdles that need to be overcome.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Seymour at a hemp business in Ashburton during a regulation review last December. Photo \/ RNZ, Nate McKinnon<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of natural health [hemp] products is stopping the health and wellness industry really taking off.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the more people that are aware of them and pushing towards those markets, then the commercial reality will help support the argument for allowing us to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewNew Zealand Hemp Industries Association chief executive Richard Barge. Photo \/ RNZ, Nate McKinnon<\/p>\n

Barge said the application process was quite a simple one that would also include the plot\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe police will need to know where the crop is going to be grown so they can obviously identify it as a low-THC industrial hemp crop, not an illicit crop.<\/p>\n

\"AA 20-hectare paddock of hemp growing in North Canterbury. Photo \/ RNZ, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd MPI want to be notified so they can let you know that you\u2019re not allowed to feed it to animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a simple email, then getting the seed and putting it in the ground come October, November.\u201d<\/p>\n

Licences have to be reapplied for each year, and officials may request a criminal record check too, the NZ Police website says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The industrial hemp sector wants smaller, non-commercial growers to give the crop a go to drive innovation and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2840,109,82239,78,1404,28205,130,117,111,43,139,69,12975,8258,28206,223,14638,80],"class_list":["post-581704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-across","tag-ground","tag-hemp","tag-in","tag-industrial","tag-monique","tag-more","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sector","tag-seed","tag-steele","tag-the","tag-wants","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}