cost of such a factory is in the many millions
of dollars and encouraging investor uptake
at times has been a challenge due to the fact
hemp is such a new product in the eyes of
many investors.
“Now we have investors on board and our plan
is to set up a North and a South Island fiber
facility, along with our North Island hemp
foods facility - HempFoods New Zealand Ltd.
"We trialled the Clarke D8 out in the fields over
several years from 2013 to 2017. However, we
decided that to really take the hard work out
of it for New Zealand hemp farmers it would
mean we'd need an indoor processing facility,
incorporating other follow-on processes like:
Dust extraction, Dryers, Shakers, Openers,
Scutchers, Packing Equipment etc."
Dave goes on, "Testing through the 2017
harvest we successfully processed fresh hemp
stalks into hemp fiber and hurd, products
which can be utilized by a wide variety of
industries."
This innovation is a world first,
and a massive step in increasing
efficiency for hemp farmers.
Hemp fiber is produced using a modern
decortication method or older hammer mill
machine. These are multi-million dollar
facilities that separate the fiber by forcefully
'hammering' the hemp stalks. A downside
Pictured:
Dave & Anne
Jordan
20
to the hammer mill is the fact that the hemp
is required to ret in the field for one to four
months before it can be harvested and
processed, as the fresh fiber contains too much
sticky resin for the hammer mill process to
work.
This makes the production of hemp fiber a
very costly process, not only due to the cost of
building the factory, but also the loss of land
for half of a year.
The 2017 Clarke D8 didn’t just work in
principle, it successfully generated an
abundance of fiber from the crop. The machine
has been built strong, after being intentionally
pushed to the limits during development. In
fact, a team of engineers were tasked with
breaking the D8, so that weak points could
be identified. These points of weakness were
then redesigned, rebuilt, and retested until
they stood up to the abuse that the world’s
strongest fiber will throw at it.
The fiber created by the Clarke D8 remains as
strong as physically possible. This is because
the fiber has incurred no damage as part of the
process, whether it be mechanical (such as in
the hammer mill) or biological (such as in the
process of retting).
Dave concludes, "We believe that our machine
is now capable of producing some of the finest
hemp fiber on earth. The potential uses for
such a fiber are innumerable, and we can’t
wait to work with those on the cutting-edge
of technology who wish to utilize this unique
product." q