HEMP BIO-FUEL HAS HUGE POTENTIAL IN QUEENSLAND

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk trumped her recent trade mission to the United States in part as laying the groundwork to create a new bio-fuel industry in Queensland.

One which will not only be the source of the mandated 10% ethanol in Queensland fuel which the 'three' Katter's Australian Party MP's are demanding using their 'balance of power' status, but also a whole new export market, to other countries including the United States.

Nothing wrong with the ideology behind it, but the question remains is it sustainable to divvy up the cane farming sector between what's grown for sugar production and what's grown for bio-fuel. If the predominant overseas precedent is any guide, the answer is 'not really'.

Not at least without creating a lot of logistical encumbrances as well as one big dilemma in having cane farmers who are growing it for sugar earning substantially less for their crop than those who growing it for ethanol.

Hemp,' the industrial variety', is much more suited to produce ethanol than sugar cane is. It's a more concentrated source of ethanol, hence you have to grow less of it to produce the same amount, and as well, hemp is a much more commercially sustainable source of bio-diesel than what cane is.

The pro-cane farmer and ethanol Katter's Australian Party MP's rather misguidedly believe that it's all gold at the end of the rainbow to give cane farmers another income stream and enterprise for when there is a glut of sugar in good season.

But what about when there is a bad season, a drought, and cane production is way down? If 'ethanol cane' is worth a heap more, it's only bound to devalue the price of 'sugar cane' even more, and in simple terms you would imagine, a shortage of cane for domestic sugar production is likely to result from that sooner or later.

In most instances at the very least, cane farmers could grow industrial hemp as a 'back-up' crop for bio-fuel while growing sugar cane for what it's really meant for. The Palaszczuk government must look outside the square and back hemp bio-fuel 100% without any reservations, even if the KAP MP's aren't real keen on the idea.