Extremadura is committed to planting hemp as a complement to tobacco. The cultivation of industrial hemp is already a reality in Extremadura, where institutions and private initiative have come together to, on the one hand, study its feasibility in the tobacco area, looking for it to be a possible rotational crop together with tobacco, and on the other to achieve that the transformation and commercialization remain in the region.
The Urdimalas del Tiétar farm, located in the municipality of Malparted from Plasenciain the province of Cáceres, has hosted this Thursday the presentation of the industrial hemp trial that the company Euro Hemp Industries has implemented in said area and of which it has already sold all the production.
It is a trial of 100 hectares of hemp for industrial and food uses: seeds, flour, oils, fiber, cosmetics, biomass and biofuel.
The recently created company intends to start the cultivation of industrial hemp in Spain on a large scale, with Extremadura as the epicenter and integrating farmers, companies and local cooperatives.
In short, it is about creating a new sector in the region and looking for the subsequent processing of the products of this plant, with the aim of contributing to creating an ecosystem around hemp.
The plantation in the town of Chinata is the largest extension of industrial hemp in Spain, in which the company Euro Hemp Industries will obtain raw material to process it for different purposes, as explained by the co-founder of the company, David Martin Darby.
“The idea is to stay here, cultivate and process everything here in Extremadura, since we have had an incredible acceptance by all the administrations,” Martin Darby pointed out before indicating that the goal for 2024 is to have 500 hectares of our own.
The businessman has drawn attention to the fact that hemp cultivation has a higher profitability than that of other crops, including tobacco, although he wanted to make it clear that “it is not an alternative for tobacco growers, but of a complement”.
During the day of this Wednesday, a demonstrative trial has also been announced in the town of Rosalejo (Cáceres) in which the Junta de Extremadura works through a joint work protocol, through the General Directorate of the PAC , CETARSA, the CICYTEX and CTAEX R&D centers and the farmers gathered through the OITAB.
In this trial, together with another that is being carried out in the town of Cuacos de Yuste, different technical-agronomic parameters of industrial hemp are being evaluated to study its viability in the tobacco area, looking for a possible rotational crop together with tobacco. as explained by the director of the Extremadura National Agrifood Technology Center (CTAEX), José Luis Llerena.
In both trials, industrial hemp is being cultivated, that is, that which is cultivated to obtain fiber or seed, always with a THC content ×0.3%, a crop that can be subject to CAP aid as long as they are grown with certified seeds. .
The forecast is to cultivate between 10 and 15 hectares of this plant in the Campo Arañuelo and La Vera regions of Cacereña for its subsequent transformation into biomass.
“Without a doubt, today we are in a historic day because we are going to relaunch industrial hemp in the Iberian Peninsula,” Llerena stated.