Fonterra’s hemp crop flourishes

A 10-hectare hemp crop has paid dividends for Fonterra, growing ‘‘like a weed’’ and tripling profitability.

The dairy co-op grew the crop at its Darfield farm, near Christchurch, where harsh summers can make growing good pasture difficult.

Fonterra regional farm operations manager, Steve Veix, oversees the farm, which is irrigated with wastewater from

Fonterra’s nearby factory.

‘‘The summer we had in Canterbury was great for hemp growing. It’s a water-efficient crop with long tap roots and it went really well with what it got with the wastewater irrigation,’’ he said.

‘‘It was very straightforward to get going and the growth was ferocious when it took off. It grew like a weed.’’

The established crop was easy to manage, requiring minimal fertiliser and no pesticide.

‘‘Once it gets up to canopy cover, there’s very little input, you don’t have to do a postemergent spray,’’ Veix said.

‘‘We put a little bit of fertiliser on to support it and sprayed the paddock out before.’’

Veix said perception of the crop, still relatively new to New Zealand, was the biggest challenge to overcome.

The co-op spent ‘‘a good year’’ planning the trial, believed to be the first of its kind to use dairy wastewater irrigation on a hemp crop, before seeking Ministry of Health sign-off.

‘‘There is still an association to marijuana and Fonterra is a company that’s watched quite closely, so we wanted to make sure we

Fonterra regional farm operations manager

were doing it properly.

‘‘When we started, we couldn’t have it growing on the outside of the paddock facing the main road because people would drive past and think, ‘Oh, they’ve got marijuana growing there’.’’

Veix said Fonterra needed to run its farms in a way that removed as much nutrient from the soil as possible.

Fonterra was contracted to grow the crop for agricultural services business Carrfields, with the grain used to make food products like flower and grain.

The hemp had tripled the profitability of the paddocks it was grown in and the co-op was looking to expand the crop.

‘‘We’re currently in discussions for some other areas at Darfield and looking further afield to another Fonterra property,’’ Veix said.

‘‘The growth was ferocious when it took off.’’ Steve Veix