Industrial hemp Can Reclaim Ghana’s Contaminated Water, Soil– HAG President

Nana Kwaku Agyemang, the President of Hempire Association of Ghana (HAG), a group advocating for the decriminalisation of Industrial Hemp (Cannabis Sativa), the non-psychoactive Cannabis strain in Ghana, says the plant can reclaim rivers and soil contaminated by the destructive activities of illegal miners (Galamsey).

According to Nana Agyemang, during the just-ended World Cannabis Day in Ghana, Cannabis Sativa is a known soil and land restorer when planted on contaminated soils or along banks of contaminated rivers.

Nana Agyemang’s claim is confirmed by the use in 1998, of Cannabis Sativa to reclaim some parts of soils destroyed by radioactive nuclear waste leakages at Chernobyl in Ukraine.

In 1998, Consolidated Growers and Processors (CGP), PHYTOTECH, and Ukraine’s Institute of Bast Crops began the planting of industrial hemp for the removal of contaminants in the soil near Chernobyl.

When scientists and the company Phytotech began to grow industrial hemp around the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, they found hemp to significantly reduce soil toxicity. 

“Once we start cultivating cannabis on those lands, over a period of time you will see that we will begin to reclaim the lands once again,” Nana Agyemang said at a news conference to mark International Cannabis Day.

HAG has therefore called on the government to hasten the passage of the Legislative Instrument that will grant local farmers, the authorisation to start the cultivation of Industrial Hemp along the banks of our river bodies.

“When we’re given the nod we will go to these venues, we will go to river Pra and cultivate hemp at the bank side of those rivers and start to absorb the pollution out of those waters,” Nana said.  

“Lots of our lands is being rendered useless, cannot be used again. We challenge them, we say that is not true, we say once we get the license we can talk to the Forestry Commission and they can work alongside us.

HAG is working in partnership with several international organisations to start an industrial revolution in hemp from Ghana. HAG plans a massive industrial park that will exploit the more than 20,000 different products that can be produced from industrial hemp commercially, including hemp fibre for textile, hemp plastic, hemp bio-diesel, and a countless range of food products that can be made from industrial hemp.