Dan, it's really good that our revamped company has several fingers in quite a few pies. If we just lay the bauxite issues aside, I can see great opportunities for hemp in this country. The huge cotton farmers from Wilcannia, through Menindee etc are entitled to extract huge amounts of water from the Murray-Darling, even during drought periods. Even beyond the ability of this powerful river system to endure. The past fortnight has shown all of us not just the effects of dry spells in Eastern Australia, but the sheer impotence and consequent ineptitude of those people we trust to avert the start in the first place of something we all wish to prevent.
I personally hope that CGB will grow broadcast hemp, encourage established cotton farmers to switch to hemp, use less than one-fifth water and do their bit to spare the Darling/Barwon another unnecessary drop. Recent news of mass kill are not new, but serves to drive home the idea that water is so precious in this area. At the moment it is a tragedy unfolding. Dorothea MacKeller speaks for herself. As does Lawson in his depiction of the Darling near Wilcannia in 1898. Nothing changes.
I would personally love to see CGB concentrate it's efforts on encouraging broadcast sowing of hemp, displacing cotton and appreciating why this generally dry country seems to be so dumb/ignorant in so many ways. Get rid of cotton and plant hemp, at one sixth of the water consumption. Considering that Cuddy Station has an annual water consumption apparently 8 times the volume of Port Jackson in Sydney, for the pure purpose of growing cotton, I find this awkward.
There is nothing that cotton can do that broadcast hemp cannot do just as well. With one-fifth the over all water consumption. That is what I believe our new CGB should focus on. Shirts, fabrics, building blocks, agricultural feed, garden mulch. Etc. The MM, well, I wouldn't be holding my breath. Acquired licences are one thing, permits another.
In any case, it's only three or four days now. Let's just see what happens next.
Always with best wishes, we should keep a very open mind.
SIA
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