Kanapu Hempery sales and marketing Kirby Heath harvesting Waimarama's new hemp block. Photo / Paul Taylor
Kanapu Hempery sales and marketing Kirby Heath harvesting Waimarama's new hemp block. Photo / Paul Taylor
Waimarama could become a new hub for hemp after the first successful harvest in the area on Friday.
Innika Broadman from the Waimarama Māori Hemp Collective said the initiative has been set up to get whānau back on their land, sewing their seeds and reaping the benefits.
The collective isworking in partnership with Otane-based Kanapu Hempery with the plan to produce hemp seed hearts, hemp oil and eventually hemp milk.
Broadman said the collective used to rent their land out to local farmer John Chesterman, which had paid the whānau's rates.
Kanapu Hempery farm operations manager Simon White and Kirby Heath harvesting Waimarama's first hemp block. Photo / Paul Taylor
Just after midday on Friday, Kanapu Hempery farm operations manager Simon White and sales and marketing Kirby Heath arrived in Waimarama with Lexi, their new combine harvester.
Broadman said the whole family and community had been really excited to harvest the first crop.
For the mana whenua in Waimarama, Broadman said they are pulling their land back, nurturing it and benefiting from the high-value nutrition hemp holds.
"We're looking at the health as well as the mouri for the land," she said.
Kanapu managing director Isaac Beach said he and business partner White have always been set on shifting the economic benefit of hemp and organic production into areas of highest need.
"Typically speaking when you take a stocktake, the redundancy in our economy is upheld primarily in the area of Māori land development," he said.
This is why they partnered with mana whenua in Waimarama and are supporting them into a position of "high-value nutrition from an organic perspective", Beach said.
More blocks in the seaside village will follow the trial block, he said.
