Hemp, new opportunities for French farmers?

An organic polyculture-livestock-methanization farmer in Pigerolles (Creuse), Jouany Chatoux has been cultivating hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) on his farm for three years. He is one of the 1,300 hemp producers in France, a leading European country in this production, with nearly 1,000 ha cultivated. Hemp cultivation has been steadily increasing for 30 years, but it is however far from the 176,000 ha it occupied in the middle of the 19th century. In France, varieties without THC Like all his French and European colleagues, Jouany Chatoux can only cultivate varieties that produce very little tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, a substance sought by some consumers for its psychotropic effect. Like all his colleagues, he is also required to have full traceability of his culture and has a 30% chance of being checked on his plants in August, in order to prove that their THC content does not exceed not the French regulatory 0.2%. On the other hand, the technical route of Jouany Chatoux, with only ...