The event was hosted by Marg Hope of Bellingen Riverside Cottages and her builder husband John, from Beyond Hope Construction.

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“The fires triggered the interest, but John’s been interested for years in building with industrial hemp,” Marg told NOTA.

“So we feel it could make a really good community enterprise.”

Globally, it is estimated that hemp is used in more than 25,000 products spanning nine sub-markets, including agriculture, building materials and textiles.

However, the high cost of transporting hemp to be processed is a daunting one, with legislative red tape seen to be thwarting the industry in Australia at present – the latter challenge currently being tackled by the NSW Government Hemp Industry Taskforce, initiated in February.

The Hopes have been researching Australian hemp and have contacted many stakeholders involved in the burgeoning industry such as growers, processors and builders.

“We found that Croatia still builds with hemp in many products,” said Marg.

“We thought: ‘Well, Australia has the climate and the space’.”

The Hopes research brought them in contact with Lonnie and Connie Minus, the owners of a hemp processing plant in Ashford near Glen Innes.

“The Ashford community had been dying, and people had asked the couple to grow hemp,” said Marg.

“They already had a lot of machinery from Lonnie’s father having been a tobacco farmer, so they adjusted the machinery to processing hemp which is a very harsh material initially, like tobacco.”

Many young families were employed in the local industry, keeping the school and the corner store open.

The Minus’ also came up with a solution to reduce transport costs.

“The transport of hemp for processing is too costly,” said Marg.

“So that’s why the Minus’ developed a portable processing plant and it’s in a shipping container.

“They’ve just shipped one to Adelaide, then one is off to New Zealand for a Maori community.”

The plant’s focus is on processing building materials, such as hemp ‘hurd’.

Also produced is clothing and pet bedding, hemp ‘fines’ for creams and food (not medicinal hemp).

The Hopes now plan to run a workshop mid-year featuring key hemp stakeholders including Andi Lucas from X-Hemp, Tasmania’s only hemp fibre processing facility, and Hannan Build from Dungog, who build sustainable homes from hemp.

It is also hoped that Klara Marosszeky from The Australian Hemp Masonry Company (Lismore) will appear.

“Klara devised the binding unit to keep the hemp together in the walls,” said Marg.

“We want to get hurd at the meetup and build a shed so people can get their hands dirty.”

An agronomist will also explain how to grow hemp and what sort of soil is needed.

By Mary KEILY