Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Hawke's Bay wants to be NZ's prime hemp growing region

Hawkes Bay Today
7 Nov, 2018 09:32 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Hawke's Bay looking at becomming big player in hemp industry. Photo / File

Hawke's Bay looking at becomming big player in hemp industry. Photo / File

Just a week after Hawke's Bay business groups decided to team up to investigate opportunities around growing hemp, the government has legalised its use as food.

In a move that could see Hawke's Bay becoming a prime hemp-growing region, Food Safety Minister Damien O'Connor said the Misuse of Drugs (Industrial Hemp) Regulations 2006 and the Food Regulations 2015 would be amended to allow the sale of hemp seed as food.

"This is great news for the local hemp industry, which has argued for decades that the production of hemp seed foods will stimulate regional economies, create jobs and generate $10-20 million of export revenue within three to five years."

Business Hawke's Bay chief executive Carolyn Neville said, as a result of last week's Future Foods Conference in Napier, a hemp special interest group would be formed to explore customer oriented opportunities in the fibre, medicine and food categories.

"Hawke's Bay's reputation as a premium producer of innovative value-add products is already well-established with apples, meat, wine. Volume hemp production is massive in Canada and it is a very mature market.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"Where New Zealand, and particularly Hawke's Bay, is best poised to take advantage is in high-quality, niche products that will sell at a premium. This approach captures the trend to natural products, organic, non-gluten, provenance, traceability, biosecurity."

Neville said hemp also presented advantages for the Māori economy with productive use of Māori land.

"In the longer term the medicinal cannabis market is a very small, niche opportunity which will be highly regulated. Hawke's Bay should not be distracted by it and should focus on hemp in food.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"The region already has global experience, a strong support infrastructure and the capability in food and beverage production. We are well poised to take this transferable skill set and apply it to add-value to hemp as a food product and develop our own hemp value chain that is market-led not production driven.

"The areas we will need to develop are the agronomic knowledge; how to farm, harvest and store what is arguably the world's most versatile plant.

"Hemp offers an opportunity for farming diversification, a trend that is already well established, with hemp offering advantages to farmers for land-use rotation and organic cropping."

Minister O'Connor said hemp flowers and leaves would not be permitted to be consumed.

Discover more

Agribusiness

Livestock ship taking up to 4000 cattle from NZ to China

11 Nov 05:00 PM
New Zealand

Diver dies on the Māhia Peninsula near Gisborne

14 Nov 12:27 AM
Business

Hemp deal boosts opportunities for community

18 Nov 06:04 PM

"Hemp is currently grown under permit and is used for fibre and hemp seed oil.

"Hulled, non-viable seeds and their products will be now be viewed as just another edible seed. Growing, possession and trade of whole seeds will still require a licence from the Ministry of Health.

"Hemp seeds are safe to eat, nutritious and do not have a psychoactive effect."

Hemp seed oil, including that made by Otane company Kanapu, has been legal since 2003.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay

Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Police stood down after Hawke's Bay stand-off, search continues

Premium
Hawkes Bay Today

Black Ferns: Tui pair on the big bird for matches in South Africa


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay
Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay

Some roads remained blocked.

17 Jul 06:02 AM
'We have you surrounded': Police stood down after Hawke's Bay stand-off, search continues
Hawkes Bay Today

'We have you surrounded': Police stood down after Hawke's Bay stand-off, search continues

17 Jul 04:06 AM
Premium
Premium
Black Ferns: Tui pair on the big bird for matches in South Africa
Hawkes Bay Today

Black Ferns: Tui pair on the big bird for matches in South Africa

17 Jul 04:00 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP