Hemp growing a “viable diversification” for British farms

Grown as a sustainable break-crop, hemp delivers four times the CO2 sequestration compared to the same area of forestry, and provides an additional revenue stream, according to growers.

Hugh completed his final dissertation on the feasibility of growing hemp as a break crop in 2019 – and subsequently decided to found Hemp North with his business partner Alistair.

After obtaining the necessary licences, the North Northumberland growers sowed their first crop in 2021. Approximately 600ha of various soil types, the farm predominantly grows winter cereals, OSR and field beans in rotation with industrial hemp.

“Our objective was to show that hemp is an environmentally friendly and viable diversification option for conventional family farms,” explained Hugh.

Methods of drying and cleaning

Having made the decision to outsource the production of hemp seed oil, he looked at ways of dehulling the hemp growing on the farm and considered several solutions that would deliver hemp hearts.

He also needed to consider how the harvested hemp seed would be dried and cleaned before dehulling could take place.

“To overcome the challenge of how to dry our hemp seeds quickly to preserve the quality, McArthur Agriculture supplied us with a Mecmar drier. They were really helpful and easy to communicate with as we discussed different drier options,” he said.

The pair visited McArthur Agriculture’s depot in Flixborough to discuss cleaning and dehulling options with director Scott McArthur.

“Once Scott had shown us the JK Machinery range of robust, yet easy to operate, cost effective post-harvest equipment, including cleaning and dehulling solutions, we understood how McArthur Agriculture’s knowledge combined with the JK Machinery range, enables farm diversification projects like ours, to get off the ground,” he added.

DIY dehulling facility

On a relatively low budget and with a lack of knowledge of the necessary process but with “amazing” help and advice from Scott McArthur, Hemp North designed a DIY dehulling facility.

“Working with Scott, we kept the facility modular and relied on gravity feeds and good old-fashioned manual labour to transfer the hemp seed between different processing stages. This allowed us to trial the system, learn the methodology and constantly tweak the parameters to improve yields and efficiencies,” Hugh continued.

Importantly, this gave Hemp North the freedom to process to order and carefully control quality, whilst developing close relationships with its early customers.

The post-harvest process

The post-harvest processing starts with the harvested hemp seeds being dried, if necessary, in the Mecmar drier. Once dried, they are cleaned and graded via JK Machinery’s JCC 05 VibroCompact vibratory sieve cleaner before going into store.

As demand dictates the hemp seeds are taken from store and then passed through JK Machinery’s JHI 05 Impact Dehuller. The JHI 05 accelerates the grain which is thrown against the hard surface, the impact causes the grain to shed its outer shell or hull. McArthur Agriculture’s experience has shown that the JHI 05 Impact Dehuller is the best fit for dehulling hemp seeds.

The material exiting the dehuller contains hemp hearts (sometimes referred to as kernels), the empty hulls and whole hemp seeds. This mix is then passed back through JK Machinery’s VibroCompact sieve cleaner to remove and separate any whole hemp seeds which are collected and put back through the dehuller.

After passing through the sieve cleaner the remaining material consists of hemp hearts with a small number of empty shells or hulls. This mix then goes over a JK Machinery JGC 03 Gravity Concentrator designed to separate material based on its specific gravity i.e. weight and density.

Having gone through the gravity concentrator the hemp seed is cleaned leaving hemp hearts to be stored.

Successful trial

“McArthur Agriculture’s expertise has been invaluable. Before we were entirely sure how the post-harvest processing would work, we took some hemp seed to McArthur Agriculture and Scott dehulled it for us as a trial using the JK Machinery. He pretty much taught us the process in one afternoon!” said Hugh.

This successful trial was key because it de-risked North Hemp’s investment in the JK Machinery by reducing the guesswork around the processing. Hugh and Alistair could see that North Hemp would be able to viably produce the hemp hearts which it needed.

Despite the steep learning curve of the first year, and the time Hemp North spent perfecting the post-harvest process, it has quickly established contracts and sales. The company is rapidly building up its e-commerce site to handle direct sales to consumers, and is seeing growing demand in its wholesale business with online health food stores, local shops and zero-waste stores.

“Now in year two we have begun to automate our dehulling facility. This enables us to increase output and produce dehulled hemp hearts at a volume which allows us to offer increasingly good value to our customers.

“We are continuing to work with McArthur Agriculture so that we can take advantage of its knowledge and expertise in the supply of seed handling equipment. The McArthur team will work with us to deliver the capability we need to efficiently dry and grade harvested hemp, in larger quantities, on farm. This will mean we can grow more hemp!” concluded Hugh.