About
Over 12 years ago I was given a film to watch called The Billion Dollar Crop.
The film talked about the benefits of using industrial hemp, as an environmental alternative to many of the resources now used that are no longer sustainable on a planet that has been depleted of its natural resources and choked with rubbish.
What stuck in my mind at the end of the film was the statement “what is criminal is that we are not using hemp” At that moment I decided that one day I would do what I could to educate the public and help facilitate the reintroduction of hemp into mainstream society.
I live in the rainforest of far north Queensland, and have always been drawn to the natural environment. Having grown up in Adelaide, I was used to living in suburbia and frequent trips to the city, but it was in the country that I felt closest to some sort of spiritual connection, even though this was not a verbal insight, but more of a feeling of ‘peace and contentment’ that transcended the normal, everyday life I was accustomed to.
For me nature has always had a sacred aspect to it, when nature is treated with disrespect and insensitivity, it hurts us as well, as we are all connected. This sense of connection led to me feeling like a ‘protector’ or ‘nurturer’ of the natural environment. Having felt a compulsion to do what I could to redress the imbalances I witnessed around me, I studied environmental science, as a mature age student, and realized that the solutions to our environmental problems were based on common sense, and after finishing an honours degree in archaeology and English literature, I took an opportunity to distribute organic European hemp products in Australia and honour that previous promise to myself.
Approximately 15 years after watching that film and planting that seed in my mind, the changes in people’s attitude towards that humble and useful plant is evidenced by the fact that it has been reinstated in many of the countries that it was formerly banned in, and in Australia we are growing the crop in almost every state of Australia with emerging industries in food, skincare, building, cellulose plastic and biofuel.
