Co-ordinated by the NZ Industrial Hemp Association the summit will look at iHemp business opportunities for NZ in food, fibre and medicine.
Summit chairman Richard Barge said building on global interest in hemp businesses fuelled by changing legislation, the summit will explore the potential for NZ to be the best in the world at growing and using hemp for food, fibre and medicine.
“NZ has a fantastic opportunity to create a brand new primary industry based on hemp and now is the time for an informed discussion,” Barge said.
“IHemp is being recognised as a sustainable source of food, fibre and medicine and this creates opportunities for companies to make it part of their future business plan and be part of what is projected by analysts to be a $75 billion global industry by 2025.”
The iHemp Summit is open to companies, farmers, scientists, funders, community leaders, economic development representatives, regulators and others wanting to look at opportunities to collaboratively develop the NZ industrial hemp economy.
Experts will share local and international knowledge on hemp, identify the local and export opportunities available to companies entering the industry, highlight the barriers to success and develop strategies and relationships that will help the industry overcome them.
“Serious momentum is beginning to build globally in the iHemp industry as people become aware of the potential and Kiwi ingenuity has a lot to offer the emerging industry,” Barge said.
“We have talented people that can create solutions and improvements for growing and processing our annual crop into a wide range of exportable products and technology in food, fibre and medicine.
“To make the most of the opportunity we need to set the vision for our country’s industrial hemp value chain and the summit can play an important role in this.”
Ashburton-based Midlands Nutritional Oils director Andrew Davidson said demand for cold pressed hemp seed oil is being fuelled by interest in its beneficial health properties.
“It’s rich in essential fatty acids such as Alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, Omega 3) and Gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) and these are the sort of speciality products that are also attracting the rapidly growing market of vegetarian and vegan consumers looking for new protein sources.”
“There is enormous potential in hemp food products and the market is growing about 25% year on year.
“Legislative changes that will allow other hemp seed based foods will open up new sources of income and markets for the crop, potentially tripling plantings in the next few years,” Davidson said.
“New business opportunities are being created by legislative changes in areas such as hemp-seed law for food and the use of cannabis in medicine,” Deloitte partner Andrew Gibbs said.
NZ food safety authorities are looking to follow Australia to allow hemp seed to be used in food by changing regulations under the Food Act, the Misuse of Drugs Act and the Medicines Act.
The law changes expected later this year will allow hemp seed to be sold as a food in NZ in addition to legislation allowing the local sale of hemp seed oil.
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