Changes are planned for 2023 to make the Spanish regulations that regulate the production and marketing of hemp more flexible, but Navarra has already taken a step forward to take advantage of the possibilities that this crop entails.
The regional government has partnered with the Public University of Navarra (UPNA), with the Navarrabiomed biomedical research center, with the Agrobiotechnology Institute of the Higher Center for Scientific Research (CSIC-IDAB), with the public companies INTIA and Nasertic, and with the private company Josenea to research, plant and develop hemp varieties that have low THC percentages, the narcotic principle for which it is best known, and that can be used for medical, scientific, research or cultivation purposes.
The formula is pioneering in the national territory, where there are agreements of companies and public universities or research centers, but not with public administrations involved, they explain from the association promoted in Navarra.
In the future, the adhesion of new partners, such as farmers or pharmaceutical companies, will be allowed, all in a community that is the headquarters, for example, of Laboratorios Cinfa.
Itziar Gómez, Navarre's Minister for Rural Development and the Environment, explains that they have been working on the project since 2020. Gómez defends that the cultivation of hemp can be "strategic" for the evolution of agriculture in the community.
"Navarra has great potential throughout the value chain: a strong agricultural sector, personnel and reference research centers,
as well as important pharmaceutical and agri-food companies”, he adds.
Obtaining authorization from the AEMPS is a complex process.
Currently, in Spain there are barely 16 ententes or entities authorized to investigate hemp, while only five licenses have been issued to produce it for medical and/or scientific purposes.
The association promoted by the Government of Navarra aims to bring together and coordinate all the actors that may operate with any type of hemp in the community, from research centers to farmers, as well as companies that specialize in the industrial transformation and commercialization of hemp. Final product.
From the regional Executive they consider that both industrial and medicinal hemp can constitute an alternative crop for economically disadvantaged areas or at risk of depopulation.
The plant is known among experts as the "crop pig", because practically everything can be used from it and with high profitability.
Edurne Baroja, a CSIC-IDAB researcher, points out that the plant is "agronomically interesting because it is not exhausting, it is not one of those that consume a lot of soil, and it is a good alternative given that the soils today are quite impoverished."
A priori
, Baroja considers that it adapts well to the Navarrese climate and that it may have a future due to its high profitability: "In Navarra, cereal is mainly grown, but the profitability for the farmer is minimal, very, very fair."
The association will present an initial project to the AEMPS with the aim of granting them a research license and, later, cultivation.
The plan consists of testing varieties and has financing of 200,000 euros for the first year of operation.
The researchers have selected thirty varieties of hemp already authorized in the European Union that have a high content of CBD —non-psychoactive component— and low THC, and that can be adapted to the growing conditions of the foral community.
They will be sown this spring under controlled conditions, in a greenhouse.
Of these, 10 will be selected to plant in the field and of these, they will keep three, with which a more detailed study will be carried out.
"The important stage will be during the obtaining of the seedling, which will then be transplanted," explains the researcher Edurne Baroja.
"We will monitor the physiological and phenological growth of the crop to determine optimal moments or good correlations that allow us to predict if the non-interesting cannabinoid, that is, the psychoactive one, is going to be produced in high quantities so as to have to eliminate the harvest" .
Baroja acknowledges that it is a long-term project, of at least three years, so state regulations will foreseeably change sooner.
However, they want to take advantage of the time: “The objective is to stay ahead of the regulations so that when they change, we can have something to offer.
In other words, get ahead of the market and offer varieties that meet the requirements so that the farmer can use them without risk of destroying the harvest."
A second objective of the study is to characterize the plants by their growth and cannabinoid content and thus explore their possible commercialization by industries in the agri-food sector, for example, as proteins and lipids of high nutritional interest.
In this first phase, the project will be located on the Josenea farm (in Lumbier), which meets the strict requirements demanded by the AEMPS to be able to research and cultivate hemp.
It is a closed environment, video-surveilled and close to both a population center and a police station.
The choice of farm can influence the results of the study due to the climate, so the researchers raise the possibility of repeating the analysis in other wetter or drier areas of Navarra.
The association intends to obtain an authorization from the AEMPS under which different farmers can work.
"However, the licences, in principle, are focused on being from the association, not on distributing among the farmers", clarify those responsible.
Therefore, if any entity wants to work in this field in Navarra, it must be part of ANIC.
The Association of Hemp Professionals in Navarra has criticized the "unilateral" and "little transparent" start-up of ANIC.
He criticizes that none of the thirty companies dedicated to the hemp trade in the foral community have received a serious invitation to participate in the association, despite the fact that some have been in the sector for two decades.
Likewise, it denounces that in the last three years they have suffered constant inspections and police interventions in their establishments.
The last, just a few days after the Provincial Executive approved his incorporation into ANIC.
A complex regulation
The Congress of Deputies created a commission in the middle of last year to make the complex legislation that regulates the cultivation of hemp in Spain more flexible.
The forecast is that the changes can be applied already this year.
This plant has been cultivated for thousands of years, mainly to obtain fiber, grain or seeds, that is, it has industrial use and lacks or has a very small proportion of THC, its narcotic principle.
The European Union allows its cultivation with a limit of 0.3% THC in the plant, which opens the doors to planting up to thirty varieties, but in Spain, the regulations are more rigid.
Plant crops that can produce narcotic drugs require prior authorization from the AEMPS, even when seeds registered in the common catalog of varieties of agricultural plant species of the EU are used.
There is an exception: that the plantations do not contain THC and are intended for industrial cultivation.
This is the case of those used for esparto footwear, cosmetic purposes, construction or for canary seed (hempseed).
If so, it is not necessary to request a license and the regulation depends on the Ministry of Agriculture.
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