Alberta and federal governments co-invest $900,000 to grow province's hemp industry

The Alberta government, in partnership with the federal government, is providing a total of $900,000 in grants to two hemp companies to help grow the industrial hemp industry in the province.

The funding, announced April 21 at the Exploring the World of Hemp Opportunities Conference at the Edmonton International Airport, will be shared by INCA Renewtech and Blue Sky Hemp Ventures. The aim is to help transform Alberta’s hemp industry into a vertically-integrated market.

Nate Horner, minister of Alberta Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Economic Development, said the governments' investment is expected to attract $1.4 billion dollars of new investment while creating 2,000 new jobs by March 2023.

"By purchasing hemp directly from Alberta's farmers and processing it here in the province, these projects will mitigate production risks for producers and create new value-added hemp products that will help grow Alberta's thriving hemp industry," Horner said in a statement.

While welcoming the investment, hemp industry officials said greater national support is needed for Canada to become a global leader in the sector.

"Financing still remains a challenge to grow Alberta’s new emerging hemp industry, and private money is hard to get,” said Manny Deol, executive director of the Alberta Hemp Alliance.

A grant of up to $400,000 was awarded to INCA Renewtech, which plans to build a $72-million composite processing and manufacturing facility in Vegreville in central Alberta. The facility would process highly refined hemp short fibres into “INCA BioBalsa,” a substitute for balsa wood which is in increasingly short supply mainly because of its use in wind turbines.

The world’s commitment to renewable energy “has triggered a huge demand for balsa wood, leaving a trail of deforestation in its wake,” according to an article by Stop These Things, a citizens-based activist group.

Longer hemp fibres processed at INCA Renewable Technologies’ Vegreville facility will be shipped for processing into bioplastics for the automotive industry, including biopanels for the recreational vehicle sector.

Blue Sky Hemp Ventures, a private Canadian company headquartered in Calgary, will receive a grant of $500,000 to advance a proposed $75-million hemp food processing facility in Alberta.

There are currently about 40,000 acres of hemp under cultivation in the province, compared with about 6.7 million acres of canola as of 2021, he said.

Blue Sky Ventures is working on whole plant utilization for hemp “superfoods,” hemp fibre and other sustainable industrial products.

Both projects are funded through the Emerging Opportunities Program under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership, which supports strategic initiatives that contribute to significant sector growth and job creation in Alberta.

Hemp offers potential in several industrial areas

Hemp has great potential in many sectors, Deol said.

• Hemp construction bricks are fire resistant – you can hold a blow torch to a hemp brick for nearly an hour and it will barely singe. Given the wildfires that have recently destroyed homes in British Columbia and in the western United States, hemp has huge potential for residential and low height (up to six storeys) industrial construction.
• Hemp offers soundproofing as a building material, so there are no extra construction costs for sound-proofing. Hemp construction also has high insulation value, so no additional insulation is needed.
• Hemp is cost effective, compared with recently soaring lumber prices.
• Hemp is strong. Henry Ford made a car chassis from hemp that was stronger than steel. The first jeans were made from hemp fibre, but they never wore out so jeans manufacturer Levi's turned to cotton because the jeans wore out and consumers had to buy other pairs.
• Hemp offers huge benefits when it comes to fighting climate change, in the carbon the crop absorbs throughout its lifecycle. In a growing season of about eight weeks, an acre of hemp can sequester about 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide – more than a typical acre of trees can absorb in a year.
• Hemp seed is highly nutritional. It contains high levels of omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids associated with reduced risks of Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular disease.

Deol noted that the Canadian government historically supported the growth of the railroad industry, the oil and gas industry, as well as forestry, and should offer similar kinds of support for an emerging industry where Canada can lead the world.

Part of the challenge as Research Money has reported, is the dual nature of the industrial hemp plant.  While it meets all the criteria of zero waste, there are legal issues between the federal departments of agriculture and health about the plant’s designation.  For example, while hemp seeds can be used for food and hemp oil, the leaves and flowers can be used to make CBD oil.

The federal government can take several steps to incentivize growth in Canada’s hemp industry, Deol said, including:

• aligning regulations between Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada;
• removing barriers in financing;
• recognizing its CO2 sequestration;
• integrating industrial hemp protocols into federal government procurement processes.

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