Live Kindly report..
For many decades, the New Zealand dairy industry has been considered a key backbone to keeping the economy alive. However, as consumers are ditching dairy at record rates, some farmers are now choosing to trial hemp crops instead of raising animals.
One farming family, the Rangitikei-based Welch’s, have farmed the same land for over 90 years, a business that has run through three generations. But instead of farming a herd of cows this year, they are giving their hand at growing hemp and pumpkin. Tom Welch told the New Zealand Herald that their horticultural move comes with something he has pondered for a while, “[i]t’s just the mass industrialisation of [dairy], it doesn’t always sit right”. The Welch family is currently farming four hectares of hemp, a small yet budding industry in New Zealand.
Dairy Farmers Turn To Growing Hemp Crops Amid Plummeting Milk Sales
Also see http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11974128
