Cannabis grown for workwear

Executives of South West company Wortkoorl Workwear sowed the seeds of their industry’s future earlier this month as part of a hemp trial program south-east of Capel.

The program is the result of a collaborative effort by the company and the WA Hemp Growers’ Co-op as well as the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.

If the trial proves successful, it would mean Wortkoorl will have access to locally-sourced materials to use in the production of its high visibility workwear as opposed to the hemp currently sourced from China.

“It’s all environmentally friendly, it’s carbon negative,” company co-director Della Rae Morrison said.

The trial has been conducted as part of the WA Hemp Growers’ Co-op’s ‘best seed for regions’ program, something executive officer Gail Stubbes said she hoped would boost WA’s hemp industry.

The hemp variety sowed earlier this month was cannabis sativa, a variant already used across a wide number of industries, including construction, food, clothing and fuel.

“The industrial hemp we’re trialling ... produces extremely low levels of THC, the drug that is found in marijuana,” Wortkoorl Workwear co-director Jennie Olszewski said.

“The industry in Western Australia is regulated under the Industrial Hemp Act 2004.”