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EDITORIAL
Comments on a strange decision in Brussels
The flax and hemp committee of the European Union has passed a resolution, published in the "Merkblatt" (official publication) of the Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (Referat 321), which is completely erroneous from a scientific point of view and which will lead to a reduction in income for the producers. This resolution decrees that EU subsidies will only be paid to hemp growers who do not harvest their hemp until the seeds have ripened. If the stand is harvested earlier, they will not only be refused a subsidy, but will also be liable to a fine of 50.000 DM.
This resolution is unprecedented in the history of
hemp production for its dilettantism and clumsy interference with the production process,
which cannot be justified from any point of view, be it scientific, legal, economic, or
any other. This intervention in the production process is reminiscent of the
centralised planning directives of the communist era, though even during that period such
enormous anomalies did not occur. I have the following comments to make on this
resolution:
1) No hemp farmer should be forced to produce seed when the aim is not
seed production, but the production of raw material for the textile or cellulose
industries, in which case the seed is lost.
2) It is a well-known fact that, especially in the case of the textile
industry, the fibre quality of densely sown fibre hemp is at its best at the beginning of
female flowering, well before the beginning of seed setting. By the end of seed
ripening the quality is substantially worse, due to the lignification of the fibres and
the accumulation of large quantities of secondary fibres. This is particularly true
for dioecious varieties.
3) It is also common knowledge that even in varieties with a THC
content of below 0.3 %, the THC content rises considerably at seed ripening, while it is
lowest in the middle or at the end of flowering. Dioecious varieties contain even
less THC during this period, since male hemp does not form resin, so it has a negligible
THC content.
4) The resolution will promote abuses by making it easier to use stands
of low THC hemp to hide plants with high THC contents, which must be grown to seed
maturity for the production of marihuana or hashish.
5) The resolution penalises farmers, as it deliberately reduces the
yield, particularly in countries such as Germany, the Benelux countries and England, where
the weather in late September and early October is often foggy or wet, making it
impossible to harvest the crop at the correct time, to dry it and thus to transport it to
the processors. This is valid for both monoecious and dioecious varieties.
Naturally, the situation is different in France, where hemp is grown at a latitude of
46-48°N, under less critical weather conditions.
6) The resolution is especially damaging to the dioecious Italian
varieties Carmagnola, Cs and Fibranova, which are to be found on the EU list, but which
could only be grown at great loss in northern countries with a maritime climate, since
their seeds would not even mature, making it impossible to fulfil the harvesting
conditions laid down in the resolution.
In the light of the above it can only be concluded that some lobby is
responsible for the passing of this resolution, since interference of this nature in
purely professional questions of production cannot be justified by any rational
scientific, legal or economic arguments. It would appear that circles interested in
the suppression of late-maturing and dioecious varieties in northern countries must be
behind this decision. It is sad to think that such a prestigious international
organisation as the EU allows itself to be influenced by narrow-minded lobbyists.
Prof. I. Bócsa, Kompolt, Hungary