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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-09-27 Daily Xml
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Industrial Hemp

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:54): Supplementary question: has the minister or his agency looked at the trial work that was done when minister Kerin did some work on it? He may have mentioned that earlier in his response. I know that substantial work was done over 20 years ago, and they found it to be unsatisfactory. Are there new varieties that make this more viable?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:55): I thank the honourable member for his question. He has a razor sharp memory in remembering some of the things that have gone on in the past—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: Some.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Some of the things that have gone on in the past. SARDI did undertake trials in 1995 at a number of sites. I think Maitland, Turretfield and Kybybolite were three trial sites in 1995 when the previous trials were undertaken. At the time, these trials were undertaken to look at the feasibility of industrial hemp and particularly whether it could produce commercial quantities of biomass from the fibre in industrial hemp.

I am advised that 22 years ago, the experience from those trials at that time did not make a strong case for the development of a hemp industry in South Australia, but many people now in the industry and advocates for industrial hemp point out that, in their view, the varieties selected may not have been the best for those places and certainly that new varieties may be much better. That is why, as I have explained, Adelaide University has conducted analysis of 20 different seed varieties to narrow it down to five for the current trials.

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