Alberta has recently added hemp to its collection of popular crops such as corn, sugar beets and potatoes.
In an article in The Lethbridge Herald, Dr. Jan Slaski, who is team lead in the crop development and management section of Ecosystems and Plant Sciences for Alberta Innovates Technology Futures, said that the hemp industry has been growing rapidly over the last five or six years, and last year, the crop yield exceeded 100,000 licensed acres.
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Most of this hemp is grown on the Prairies, and Slaski estimates that a quarter to a third of all hemp production in Canada comes out of Alberta. Some of this production is in part owing to efforts by companies such as Rowland Seeds in Taber. The company is growing about 8,000 acres of organic hemp per year.
Slaski also added that Canada is the largest hemp producer in the world, with China in close pursuit.
The natural health product industry isn’t the only one taking advantage of this golden crop, the textile industry is also setting foot into the field with a Quebec-based uniform manufacturer, Logistik Unicorp, is testing Alberta Innovates-grown hemp as a textile fibre.
Not only that, another company, Stemia, is planning on using hemp to make construction materials.
