William Aird: Hemp Ready - Why Are We Still Waiting?

Thanks very much. I'm just learning as I go along and I suppose the frightening thing for me is that you started in 2016 and we're no further on. That's what I'd be very frightened with but I do think that, you know, that's a crop that can leave or guarantee you 350 years an acre. There'll be a huge amount of people that'll be jumping at it, I can tell you that. But I can't understand this, you know, like it can be grown in any soil. To me it looks to be, you know, very good soil. You couldn't grow a bee in any soil. You had to have good land to grow a bee in it, you know what I mean? I'm just making the point. I saw it, I pulled it. I got back in wet land and I had to pull it by the hand. So, you mean, you know, it all depends on the type. I'm only making the point here but, like, I think this would be fantastic but the only thing I'm very nervous of when I hear that it's going on for 10 years now and we're no further advanced. That's what I'd be very much afraid of because it seems to be a win-win situation the whole time. Like, the off-product of it looks great, just from me looking at it. Everyone's given out about the price of insulation and everything. So if we had it now when all the building boom was going on, sure, we'd have a great little country for manufacturing that, like, we'd be even self-sufficient in it rather than importing it in. But I would just like to say that, you know, and in fairness to Oak Park and Carroll, they have done a lot of work and I want to congratulate them. I've never had an opportunity to say it again because I know a lot of people that work doing research and that down through the years. And, like, we are in a situation, despite what was said, where tillage was going to increase by four or five percent. It's not. It's going the opposite way. There's less and less tillage and there's going to be less and less tillage. With the price of grain, that's it. That's why I'm saying, if we're coming in here today and I'll be talking to people and say, well, we'd hemp growers, we're people in this trying to grow hemp, are encouraging us to try and get the government to put all the ducks in line to grow. And they could be guaranteeing up to 350 euros a hectare. They have no problem getting people to sow it. I can tell you that has one cert anyway, from that point of view. But I just had a few questions, just so as I can educate myself, and I am a farmer myself. What single, we'll say, regulatory change would most immediately accelerate domestic and cultivation and processing? Do you know, these are just quick fire questions, just so as I can. Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, so industrial hemp, moving from the HPRA to DAFM, have DAFM oversight of industrial hemp. Right. That's number one. That's number, and that's number one to kick us off. Can I just add to that there? One of the things in licensing that'll be very important for us is for the individual to be licensed for a five-year period, rather than the area of ground that was grown. Because if we, at the moment, we go out to, we're going to the HPRA, and we have a field there, 10 acres or whatever, and we have to go in, we have to register that field, and that's where it has to be sown. But as growers, we would like to be licensed ourselves, at least have that as an option, and we'd be able to be licensed for five years. Then we can plan ahead. Right, that's great. Can you quantify the current production of bottleneck? You know, it obviously is licensed, isn't it? It's not harvested, or processing capacity. It's licensed, is it? The bottleneck is decartication. All right. That's what, out of the ground. And how competitive is Irish-grown hemp fibre compared to imported alternatives? And what budget measure would close the cost gap? I like the, Ronan probably is the best to ask that to, because Ronan is buying it overseas at the moment. So, the quality of the herd, really, we just look for construction grade sheave. Like, I've used, I think, a small amount of Irish herd before, and it's perfectly comparable to the European herd. Right, so if you could get it here, you'd take it? If I take your hand on it. And how much are you buying it for? You're probably getting it for... For men cereal farmers altogether. How much are you giving for it? We give, I'm just trying to think here now, we would give approximately about two euro per kg. Right, and what would that have, if I was sowing an acre of that in the morning, what do you think you'd be buying it off me for? If I got it for half that, it'd be a real advantage for the Irish. Yeah, but how much would I get per acre, what would it be working out for me? You're saying three fifty? No, what we're saying there is, sorry. No, but it's all about money at the end of the day, like. Yeah, well, what we're saying, the farmer will guess, well, if we're growing, sowing the hemp there, per ton, he will get 250 euro per ton. So he'll have a thousand euro at a four ton crop, he'll have a thousand euro per acre for his crop. Now, that isn't a, you know what I mean, there's no, there's a lot of estimations that'll say it'll be five or six ton a crop, but we're taking it at four. Now, then we sell it, we have priced in our business plan that the price of the hemp, the sheep that we sell in Ronin would be about 600 euro a ton. So that's the difference for the processing going on to Ronin. So therefore, my next question is, you know, I was asking how competitive is it with, you know, Irish grown hemp? So it would be, is the answer. It would be very competitive, yeah. And can I just ask you this, what is the realistic annual production potential if government support for hemp construction materials was expanded? What is the real, well, there's no limit, you know, because the one thing I said there, sorry JJ, just two seconds. The one thing I said there, in Ulster, the 1920s, 30s and 40s, there was 250,000 acres of flax and hemp sown. There was 250,000 acres. Now, that's no different than the land in the west of Ireland. And we're capable of doing that the exact same way. Sorry, JJ. Right. Hemp is part of the bio-based material family in construction. And in Europe, we're only at 3%. So we need to see a massive acceleration of bio-based materials like hemp into construction if we are going to decarbonize the construction sector. So we're only at a tiny, tiny beginning. So just in terms of the scale and the scope is really significant. There's a big, big potential. Can I ask you a question? Which specific building sector incentives are right, such as procurement rules on green material subsidies would most rapidly increase the demand for hemp-based products? Yeah, just like right across, you know, look at the social housing. Like, you know, looking at retrofitting. You know, you're talking about retrofitting a house and there's a retrofitting grant there at the moment. So we could use that. Look at the insulation that you're using at the moment. It's a high-carbon insulation. So what you're doing is front-loading carbon. And that's what you showed us there going around. This gives you low-base carbon insulation to it. You know what I mean? I think that's it. You asked about, you know, the tonnage that you're using. Every one of them 70 different aspects that are made, it'll bring a different tonnage. Yeah. You know, when you calculate that. And I just wanted to ask you about the carbon sequential, but I think you've answered that because it's way above. Way above. Isn't that correct? Yes. We should inform national climate policy. You know, we're just trying to tick all the boxes because this is all positive. As far as I can see, you know, and everyone's the same. There's research done globally, like across the US, right across Europe on the different types of fuel. It's already there. It's ticking the boxes for that as well. It's already there. The new policy in Europe last November, it's there. You know, what we need to do is adopt the policy here and move it forward. Now, can I ask you this? What are the key scientific or regulatory barriers preventing hemp from being fully integrated into mainstream construction standards? Mr. Hanlon is keen to get in on that. Just only very, very quick. The construction industry is not only looking for, you know, supply. They're looking for localized supply. They're asking for, you know, localized supply because that comes into their cost or the overall cost of, you know, the transport. But also the carbon and the climate. So they want to support local. So you take me, because I am in a niche, all right. So if there was a hemp base built up by farmers to sow hemp, right, that the byproducts then for all the building materials would be done in a niche. Is that what you're saying? Give or take. Yeah. No, but I'm only saying that's what we're talking about, isn't it? That's exactly it. There's nothing wrong with that. There's also the factor of ESG, you know, corporate sustainability reporting for companies. That's become a big thing as well, where companies need to have a CSR report. So, you know, hemp is really good for that. Also, we're facing significant financial exposure regarding the 8 billion to 20 billion by 2030 if the targets are missed. Yeah, I had a few more questions, but my time is up now. But can I just ask you, like, everything's positive here. Everything's good. We're all talking, right? Farmers would love to be listened to. We'll be getting a guaranteed price and all that. But the bottom line is, when are we going to see this industry in this country? Is there anybody who could answer me that? Yeah. We'll see this industry, as I said earlier, when you have DAFM oversight of industrial hemp and when we finally align with Europe. That EU framework, it's already in place. It's a plug-in. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, start from scratch for policy. It's there in Europe. So if we align with that, then that's when you build your industrial pathways from then onwards. I ask you, when do you see this in this country? When do you actually see this? You're growing, right? When do you think this will happen? We're growing at the moment. We're ready to go. The farmers are there. We're ready to get the decartication. All we're waiting for is support from the Department of Agriculture, from Enterprise Ireland, from different bodies like that. And once we have that, we have already hemp sown. We're just waiting for the decarticator. We have farmers ready to sow it. We have farmers ringing us on a fairly regular basis. How are you fixed? What's happened? Any sign? We have buyers lined up to buy it. The decartication is where it needs to get going, and we need to get the support to get the decartication going. If the decarticator is put in place, it will fall into place then, because everything else is ready to go. When do you think the decarticator will be put in place? This year. Do you think this year? We would expect that we'll be decarticating next year's crop. That's a great answer. That's what we expect. Very good. We move on to Senator Collins.