Good practice:

Hemp as a sustainable and renewable ingredient

Everything started in 2013, when the farm cooperated with TUAS in Hyötyhamppu project funded by funded by European Agricultural Rural Development Fund to research hemp honey production. As a result, the company maintained the interest towards oil hemp cultivation.

Special crops have always been used in the crop rotation in the farm, even before the hemp experiment. Hemp provide better profit which increases the profitability of the farm. It can also be used to improve the quality of the field. Hamppufarmi cultivates some of the hemp themselves and buys the rest from contract farmers around the country. The seeds are bought in the spring as a joint procurement, which allows for a lower price.

The main stakeholders are the users (individual customer, cosmetic industry and further processors) and their contract farmers. The contract farmers send a sample to Hamppufarmi to test the quality of the hemp. They process the harvested crop into 12 different products. Some of them are hemp seeds, flour, oil, and snacks.  The products are sold in their web shop, the two main grocery store chains and health food shops in Finland, and in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands. Hemp is also used to feed animals. Hamppufarmi has participated in training for small entrepreneurs organized at the University of Turku.

3 full-time, 1 part-time in production and 1 person in marketing hired as an outsourcing service, and 20 contract farmers. Space for food production, machines, equipment for e.g. cleaning, and machines for packaging. Estimated start-up cost is approx. 200 000€.

The number of workers has increased over the years. The operation was first run by two people. The third person was hired quickly after the start. In 2019, a part-time worker and in 2020, a person in charge of marketing were hired.

Regular customers tell about success. There is a growing demand for the products. In addition, the attitude and know-how of the oil hemp nationally with consumers has improved and it's seen as nutrionally valuable product.

At first, the challenge was to find sellers for the products. Hemp as a material was quite new and it was considered as illegal. Calling directly to the shops helped to find sellers and the good cooperation with the local food authority was helpful.

Due to the easiness of hemp cultivation, the model can be copied widely. Hemp is a fast-growing, energy-rich plant that grows even in modest conditions and does not need artificial watering or large amounts of fertilizers or insecticides. Hemp always blooms at the same time of the year, regardless of when it was sown. It also acts as a carbon sink that absorbs more carbon than it releases. Hemp cultivation requires less land area for producing the same amount of nutrition, energy and proteins than e.g. meat production. 

Hamppufarmi case is a good example of the benefits that publicly funded project cooperation can offer. The initial idea for the company was planted as part of another pilot project and the lessons learned from the experiment was the starting point for oil hemp production.