Michael Pollitt
Euro MP and Norfolk farmer Stuart Agnew has urged home officer ministers to boost home-grown hemp production.
While visiting the Halesworth factory, he was told that Whitehall officials insist that farmers must pay £580 for a licence to grow the crop.
Mr Agnew, who is UKIP’s member of the European parliament’s agriculture committee, wrote to home office minister Theresa May to ask her to scrap an “unnecessary” tax on hemp growers.
Her home office rule was “restricting the opportunity for a UK industry to compete with others of a similar nature elsewhere in the EU.”
“Hemp is a minority crop on arable land in the UK that provides an excellent break crop for weed control and yet requires no pesticides whatsoever to be applied during its growing period,” wrote Mr Agnew, who is a former chairman of Norfolk National Farmers’ Union and a free-range egg producer.
Full Article:
http://www.edp24.co.uk/business/farming-news/euro_mp_calls_for_end_to_hemp_tax_for_farmers_1_2287631