The European Commission has set a first-ever public event dedicated specifically to market opportunities in industrial hemp. Commission officials, national ministry representatives of EU member states, and sector representatives from the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) and agriculture advocacy network Copa-Cogeca will appear during the meeting, to be livestreamed Monday, April 26 from 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. CET.
The agenda for the session includes discussion of farming, food, textiles, construction materials and plastics.
Those scheduled to attend include Michael Scannell, Deputy Director General of the EC’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development; Stéphane Borderieux, Vice-Chair of Copa Cogeca’s working party on flax & hemp; Daniel Kruse, CEO of Hempro International GmbH, Germany, and President of the EIHA; Giuseppe Croce, President of Italian hemp association Federcanapa; Hervé Pottier, CAVAC, France; Anthony de Mot, Isohemp, Belgium; Marek Radwanski, Ekotex, Poland; Jean Marie Bourgeois Jaquet, Automotive Performance Materials, France; Lucia Klauser of the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, Switzerland; and Ted Haney, CEO at the Canadian Hemp Trade Association.
A similar event focused on flowers, extracts and cannabinoids is expected to be organized later this year.
EIHA has outlined how hemp can address a wide range of EU goals in “Hemp: A Real Green Deal,” a paper released last year which discusses the crop’s potential to positively affect such things as climate change, biodiversity and economic development.
