Mayor Mitch Campsall says he met with Agricultural Minister Lana Popham at the recent Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Convention and he was pleased to hear the District of 100 Mile House’s hemp project is top of mind with the new minister.
“She was absolutely great and very positive about having facilities for processing hemp. Processing meat is No. 1 on her agenda, but hemp is part of the processing picture.”
Campsall says he was invited to a meeting with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and 100 Mile House was front-and-centre with its hemp project.
He adds there may be provincial funding for processing hemp because that’s what Popham was talking about.
“Our No. 1 goal is to diversify what we already have on the land right now.
“Now, we have to think about what we’re going to process [the hemp] to. It’s all going to be part of the conversation, but it’s going to take a while to get this one up-and-running.
“If we can get a start on it and get some way of getting it processed, we can do something with the hemp. We’ll have to look at what kind of process we want to do.
“We’ll be talking with the ministry about processing and we’ll be doing it hand-in-hand.”
Campsall says they have good contacts on Vancouver Island who want to use the hemp fibre for clothing, and hempcrete building is also a popular concept.
“If we’re going to do it, it’s going to be something that won’t cost anything when we’re up-and-running, but it will make money and provide jobs.
UBCM election
Campsall has been elected to represent small communities at UBCM meetings.
“I’ll be representing small communities when we have issues at UBCM and working with our provincial government to get by these major issues that we have to work on together.”