Advancing a sustainable Scottish supply chain for Hemp Fibre

MARK BOWSHER-GIBBS, PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT, SAC CONSULTING

Innovation in any industry is always an exciting and inspiring sphere to work in and agriculture is no exception. Across this sector ideas and concepts are continually evolving, developing and challenging our ways of thinking. Over the last couple of years, interest in the production of natural fibres and co-products from crops of industrial hemp and flax has rapidly been gaining traction.

There are a small number of innovators who already have, by virtue of their own initiative, well-developed and successful business models. The challenge for new entrants is being able to develop the supply chain to encompass not only production, but also processing and manufacturing of products to market.

Hemp was widely used in the UK until the 20th century when cheap and abundant jute and cotton made it uncompetitive and new synthetic fibres made their debut in the 1950’s. The decline in its industrial use was gradually replaced by its misuse as a psychoactive drug. This resulted in European and North American countries banning its cultivation and 65 years lapsed before it was relicensed in the UK in 1993.

Now, multiple SMEs are interested in developing a domestic supply chain for products made from hemp (and flax) to increase resilience, sustainability credentials and local community impacts, yet no single SME to date has had the resources to determine the agronomics/ techno-nomics and investment required, to underpin a domestic Scottish supply chain startup. Whilst manufacturers of hemp products are already operating in Scotland, local production of the crop and it’s subsequent processing to feed into the manufacturing process have yet to evolve.

Due to this current market challenge, SAC Consulting reached out to Scottish Enterprise in 2023 for funding to support a supply chain study with a particular interest in industrial hemp.

Seeking funding support aligned with the demand for a scalable sustainable biobased material becoming more critical as the Scottish and UK government set their net zero mandates for 2045 and 2050 respectively. Supported by the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBiolC), funding has since been awarded and the study is currently underway, involving crop variety trials, an assessment of the technical and economic aspects of crop production, crop processing requirements and market analysis. The main deliverable will be a free and publicly available ‘sector’ report, detailing all the project findings, to be published by Scottish Enterprise on Evaluations Online, early in 2025.

Unencumbered by lengthy UK prohibitive legislation, European production has flourished and currently over 33,000ha is given over to the crop. France retained their expertise and manufacturing facilities and today is the largest producer of hemp in Europe with well-developed farmer co-operatives, the largest of which is La Chanvriere in North East France, now totals 400 members jointly growing 13,000ha of hemp.

Industrial hemp is indeed a true multi champion of bioeconomy; as a biomaterial it can be transformed into textiles, construction materials, paper, biocomposites (used for packaging or pressure moulded for the automotive industry), furniture, fuel and biochar.

Such innovative progress was only too evident at the European Industrial Hemp Association conference in Prague in June of this year. There is clearly huge ambition to penetrate and develop out these markets, well supported by the European Green Deal; a set of policy initiatives approved in 2020, with the overarching aim of making the European Union ‘climate neutral’ in 2050.

The UK has fallen well behind the curve. That being said, recent lobbying has been rewarded and the Home Office has now moved to relax future licensing requirements for farmers wanting to grow the crop.

In the coming months, the project will focus on creating a pricing model to encourage farmers to include hemp fibre crops in their rotation. Not only must this model be economically viable, but it also leverages hemp’s impressive carbon sequestration ability; absorbing more carbon-dioxide over a 120-day growing cycle than the same area of woodland achieves in a year. The valorisation of carbon from the production processes will be particularly significant.

If you would like to learn more about the work SAC Consulting are undertaking in connection with this project, please get in touch.