As they are based in Brussels itself (the “Washington DC of the European Union”), and have a professional staff used to doing this for other industries, here are my suggestions for the European Industrial Hemp Association’s continued service to members:
- Lobby for the Common Agriculture Program (CAP) to include subsidies for hemp seed and flower farmers
- Obtain grant money, especially for projects developing seed for food
- Develop domestic sources of edible hempseed as a food security priority
- Incorporate hemp farming and processing into EIP-AGRI programs and focus and operational groups
- Obtain grants funding promotion of hempseed foods and training of its use among product developers, chefs and institutional feeders
- No THC testing if using approved varieties
- All naturally-occurring hemp flower products exempted from Novel Food registration, especially in light of the recent Polish court + Kanavape rulings
- 1% max THC for plants and products (harmonizes with Poland and Switzerland), 3,000 ppm max THC for foods (harmonizes with US law)
- Central streamlined seed registration and approval system not reliant on national authorities
- Lab testing of products made available to consumers
- Adoption of shelled hempseed and protein powder into national institutional feeders such as prisons and schools
- E.U. to purchase packaged shelled hempseed for feeding in disasters and emergencies
- Lobby for grants and other programs to encourage shelled hempseed adoption in member states’ diets as well as to fund the multiplication of seed needed for that effort
- Allowing hemp flower products including seed to be used as animal feed
- Fund development of nonwoven products, especially from atypical Cannabis fibre namely marijuana and CBD shrubs
Buy Canapa
Italy has the most to gain by pivoting to hempseed foods and using a national branding strategy for exports; to that end it should fund the building of at least one shelling and oil pressing plant. Otherwise it remains at the mercy of the CBD merchants like has happened in the US, with that “Cannabis Light” in thousands of stores they could also carry hemp foods.
(I’m posting this here as an Open Letter instead of to EIHA directly as despite my decades in hemp and actually being in the European Industrial Hemp industry for years, I am dead to the European Industrial Hemp Association until I pay them 2.500€ annually to be a member. This is despite having a not-for-profit business which dispenses 10,000 breaking news posts a year on hemp but charges no one even a penny. Jus’ bidnes’. But if I put it here, someone will bring it to their attention. They always do.)