{"id":40705,"date":"2017-02-21T07:32:56","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T06:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=40705"},"modified":"2018-02-15T13:45:34","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T12:45:34","slug":"hemp-production-albertas-newest-cash-crop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/hemp-production-albertas-newest-cash-crop\/","title":{"rendered":"Hemp Production – Alberta\u2019s Newest Cash Crop"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t take an economics degree to recognize Drayton Valley is a town hard hit by low oil prices and a struggling provincial economy, but on Friday, December 16, a small group of stakeholders and business people sat down to discuss a whole new local industry. The topic on the table: hemp manufacturing and the Drayton Valley Bio-Mile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With local industry, resources and intellect on board, the Town of Drayton Valley is working on the first stages of an ambitious economic diversification project based on existing bio-composite facilities. Operated by the Alberta based Bio Composites Group (BCG), the Drayton Valley biocomposite fiber plant is currently used to process natural fibers, like unused wood and crop materials, into a variety of products, from automotive parts to erosion control. The Town hopes to leverage this already established facility to manufacture and process hemp, one of Alberta\u2019s most efficiently grown crops.<\/p>\n

Based on reports by industry leaders, Drayton\u2019s own Economic Development Manager Eric Burton Ec. D writes, \u201cAlberta is one of the best places in the world to produce and harvest hemp due to our extended hours of daylight and nutrient-concentrated soil. With 30 000 acres of land in Alberta currently devoted to growing hemp, a decorticator facility located in Vegreville and the Drayton fiber mat production plant, all that is need is to create a sustainable provincial market for bio-composite hemp products. This is where the work being done by the Town of Drayton Valley comes in. Their collaboration with local business owners, organizations and surrounding communities to build a supply\/access chain to worldwide markets will be the beginning of a game changing economic resource base.<\/p>\n

Studies done by Eric Burton show that a hemp manufacturing supply chain would create 485 direct jobs in rural Alberta, $212 million in business opportunities and $220 million in capital investment. Local MLA Mark Smith, one of the projects leading proponents, said he felt the recent meeting went well and that the project is quickly garnering local support. Mayor McLean, who also attended the meeting, highlighted that the community is coming together to explore emerging business opportunities to put local skills to great use, tap into a mature business community and leverage local investment as Drayton Valley becomes \u201cground zero of a rapidly expanding bio-industry, powered by entrepreneurs\u201d. He concluded, \u201cThe solutions to today\u2019s challenges, are right here, in our community. And together, we can cultivate a world class business environment, that incubates innovation, and accelerates success.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is clear that Drayton Valley is more than ready to expand its base of resource production. With the Town of Devon building their own hemp production facility beginning early 2017, a united effort to encourage Alberta\u2019s hemp industry will be well underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t take an economics degree to recognize Drayton Valley is a town hard hit by low oil prices and a struggling provincial economy, but on Friday, December 16, a small group of stakeholders and business people sat down to discuss a whole new local industry. The topic on the table: hemp manufacturing and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[11286,11877],"supplier":[13136,13137],"class_list":["post-40705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biocomposites","tag-naturalfibres","supplier-drayton-valley-town","supplier-sustainable-biocomposite-technologies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40705"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=40705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}