There won’t be any government-grown hemp in the Kamloops area, after a business case was made to do so.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District was asked last year to study that possibility, but earlier this month board members rescinded that motion.
Director of Community Services Ron Storie says the TNRD would’ve had to find more than half a million dollars for start-up costs.
“I don’t think anybody’s disagreeing that we can’t grow hemp or cannabis products here. But I think the bigger issue is in order for us to carry out what we’re doing, it’s kind of out of scope for a local government, it’s kind of a Ministry of Agriculture thing, and there’s a fairly high start-up cost,” Storie says.
“The question would’ve been, where would the TNRD come up with a minimum of $500,000 for something like this. Big business is taking the bear share of everything, and they’re moving forward with it. And what we understood here was, local governments, I’m not sure really need to be involved in this, based on the information we have.”
Area director for Spences Bridge, Steven Rice, says those weren’t the only barriers.
“There’s no facility. And with no facility to process it, it’s a real problem. You have to get property and build a facility. So I would suggest the cost to get it going is much more than $500,000 dollars. And that’s one of the biggest obstacles.”
In July of 2019, the TNRD was asked to look into growing hemp as a potential rural employment option, after mills shut down in Vavenby, Chasm and Merritt.