Michael Fitzmaurice: Why Irish Policy Is Blocking Hemp Growth

First of all, you're all welcome. I know a number of them. Paul, we've been at this for a number of years, and I agree that policy is the problem in the whole thing. There isn't many industries that you can say that somebody has come in here, that's prepared to come to this country, set up a business, make a product, put the money into it and put the workforce into it. And still, we're looking at them, and we're not prepared to get the raw material ready for that person. That's a damning statement of any country. I have a few questions first, and I'm trying to get through them as quick as I can. Raymond, who's the likely farmers that will be growing industrially? What we have found initially, it was aimed at the part-time farmer. Part-time farmer that was in full-time employment, that either had very low intensive farmer, that had maybe even land that he wasn't using. What sort of land? Average land. It doesn't need to be exceptional land. Like, we had a sugar beet industry. We had a sugar factory in Choom, in County Galway. The land is there, plenty good enough to grow hemp. What we initially were aiming at was the land that doesn't want to be seven days a week. He's working five days a week. He wants to restore a sort of a work-life balance and use that land. But then, the tillage men as well, because they want to use it, like has been said, they want to use it as a break crop. You can go from that one extreme to the other, any farmer in between, because the bottom line is, if you can offer 300 or 350 euro an acre profit for a crop that doesn't require any pesticides, doesn't require a small amount of nutrients in terms of NPK, and is not weather dependent, like a lot of our tillage crops. In a lot of minds, from talking to lads, it's a no-brainer, you know, and that is the bottom line. So it's across the board, hemp's appeal to the farmer nowadays. JJ, what happens if you have a bad year? Remember as a youngster, and we're having stakes of oats, oats, or stooks of oats, and you're turning them and twisting them? We looked at all across the world, and we looked at paralysis, paralysis technology. We were in Germany there a couple of weeks ago. Okay. We're looking at where we bring hemp fibre into paralysis and biochar, and what research we're doing at the moment between biochar, activated carbon, and graphene. You know, I left this morning, and we're actually mixing biochar into concrete, looking at creating low-carbon concrete, and we're 3D printing it for housing. So we're looking at a new product there, alright? Like, the paralysis technology is there. It's something we're trying to bring in here to Ireland. We have an expert there after a couple of weeks ago, but it's the value of that, of the biochar. See, the thing about concrete and lower carbon and concrete, hemp can be one single line of science. You know, so it can be hemp 75 that can go into a biochar, and it actually can be granulated down and can bring into activated carbon into concrete. So it gives you the whole scientific analysis, so that we can do certification straight through to the industry. You know, so it has that aspect of it. Probably that hemp, and actually willow, is the two main products. But also it has the carbon credits. It has the major carbon credits. Like, we're talking about 320 hectare of carbon credits that could be coming down the next aspect of it. So, like, it's an industry that has a carbon credit. It is an industry that we can use to, like the concrete, to lower the carbon in concrete. That can be also identified on analysis based on a light side analysis. What's the load burden weight of hemp, if you're building? I've seen a fascinating block, by the way, that came from France. And I was, it was, like, you'd lay them all day, I'll put it that way, you wouldn't be afraid of them. But they're a fine job. Is there a load burden weight, or do you put a steel frame around it? No, you have to put a structural framing around it. And so the majority of it, it's blocks, because it's only 0.35 MPa. So the thing is, you don't want a dense hemp. Because what it does, it will destroy the level of insulation, sound, breathability, and so on and so forth. There is a block that was built in Canada. It was very dense, but the insulation rating was half of what a normal hemp block is. So as Ronan pointed out here about the breathability and all those sorts of things, that's why these blocks are big. There's no mortar. They go up really fast and all the framing gets put in. And we actually reduce the carbon footprint to negative carbon, the buildings. How many hectares did you say, Glenn, per year? We'd need at least, on full production in the factory, we'd need 2,400 hectares, which is around about 15,000 metric tonnes of hemp. So it's quite significant. And as far as risk management, you just talked about what happens if there's a bad season. What we're looking at in the other areas in the world we're going to be putting in factories is trying to mitigate some of that risk by having bales stored like you do with hay, so then they can be decodicated and then used. So also because we're going to have a number of factories, it'll be a distributed system, not mega factories everywhere. The word you used there, decarcification or whatever word it is, that's a machine obviously that does that, is it? Well, that's what the farmers are talking about here. What's the price of one of them? Well, it'll be up to 12 million euros, depending on what size you want per hour. And it could be as little as, you know, depending on the quality. I mean, there's all sorts of different equipment out there, but it's what you pay for is what you get. And then it depends on, you know, the usability. We need 15,000 tonnes, but we don't need it processed at the same time. So, you know, it's really up to the industry to decide here, based on what our requirements are, what type and how much they want to spend on decodication. But I would say, as everything else, our manufacturing equipment's quite expensive and the decodication's probably going to be similar. So, you know, it's 20 to 30 million euros to set up processing and production of products. Cian, in relation to talking to the department, I think the big stumbling block in this is between the Department of Health, the Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture. Everyone is wary. And look, sometimes for right reasons, do you know what I mean? But has there any approach been made for industrial hemp for construction, a licence specifically for that? No, not at the moment, no. But I'll pass that on to maybe Eugene, if you want to comment. I just want to comment on the last one, just where Glenn is there. Because we can get a decorticator. Decorticators aren't going to cost that much. Decorticators' prices are coming down. Now, we have looked at decorticators in Canada, decorticators in Poland that are running that will decorticate two tonnes of hemp an hour. So they would come in at about 250,000 at the moment to us. But what Glenn is talking about there was some of the decortication systems, we'll say that the likes of Tatum have, that are up under three, four million. But we don't need to go there to get the level of decortication for a hemp block and for the fibre for insulation. But the fibre, if we're going to the textile fibre, we need a different level, we need a better level. And most of these decorticators are modular. So you start off with something basic and you add on sections onto it that will give you a longer fibre, cleaner herd, and that as we go through. It's safer to reach the target of 15,000 tonnes. So I would just agree with that statement, sorry. But you're talking about two tonnes an hour. So you're talking about 2,000 acres a year for what we'd be looking at. Yeah. You've been in the IDA in Adrone, you were up there selling raiment. You've been at Enterprise Ireland. A door has always opened, but nothing has ever happened. Because the policy, and I'm just wondering, Barry, where you can come in on this, and Stephen. The policy, we have no policy, everyone talks about it. I've come in here and people have been talking about cutting it with sides and mowing machines and every type of thing for the last 10 or 15 years, 10 years since I came in here. And we're still no further advanced. Would PAWS Bill, if we all support him, would it solve something? Or what's the way of trying to get this on the road, even in a pilot project, to start off with for year one? So first of all, we said, what's the need, or why should we be looking for this crop to be grown, within tillage systems especially? One of the first questions you asked is, who are the first farmers who would adopt this? As part of our Climate Action Plan, we have a target to increase the tillage area up to 400,000 hectares. We're hovering around 300,000 hectares at the moment. We're actually contracting rather than expanding the tillage area. So we're going the opposite way. So I think the tillage industry is in crying out need for new crops to diversify into. But obviously they won't invest in those crops unless there's a clear market outlet for it. So in that context of 300,000 hectares of tillage land, we're small compared to other European countries. We have only 9% of our utilisable agricultural area in tillage. So it's small compared to other countries like Germany, England, where they have a majority of their land in tillage crops as opposed to in grassland. So to create that demand and meet our Climate Action Plan targets, I think farmers would actually respond to it and they would grow the crop. I think in terms of... It was also mentioned earlier by Senator Daley about the relevance of it as a break crop to improve the soil, to the taproot nature of the hemp improves aeration in the soil and you do get higher yields from subsequent crops of wheat. You could have a bounce of up to maybe 10%, 12% in your subsequent wheat crops. So all of those are, I suppose, a need factor. And the sugar beet industry was alluded to earlier on. That industry disappeared back around 2006 and was a valuable break crop within tillage agricultural systems. Those farmers and tillage farmers especially are looking for a break crop, a break crop that is going to be good for their soil and that's going to be paying them. But obviously if farmers are offered a contract and if Glen, for example, has a proposal there and this can be suggested to our tillage advisers within Chagas that this is a meaningful contract that they can grow the crop. It's not a long-term crop like willow or miscanthus where your ground is taken up for 20 plus years. This is an annual crop. So it's possible to diversify in for a year and dedicate an area of land to it as part of if a business was being developed like you're proposing, Glen. So I think there would be a massive interest in it.