On Wednesday, July 22, Edward River Council will host a free public screening of the documentary The Hemp Road Trip at the Deniliquin Town Hall.
Doors open at 6pm, the film starts at 6.30pm, and from 7:30pm a Q&A panel of hemp experts from around the country will take questions.
Yarkuwa Indigenous Knowledge Centre will open the evening with a Welcome to Country.
I should declare an interest: I shot, edited, and directed the film. In 2016 and 2017 the Hemp Road Trip advocacy group travelled to all 48 contiguous American states aboard a biodiesel bus, asking one simple question: why was the United States, the world's largest consumer of hemp products, still forbidding its own farmers from growing the crop?
The answer was decades of fear, not evidence. Screening by screening, audiences moved from curiosity to action: contacting legislators, backing local growers.
That grassroots momentum helped carry the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalised hemp across America and opened a new industry.
My wife and I have since made Deniliquin our home, and we believe the same opportunity now sits in front of Riverina farmers.
Hemp offers genuine diversification: a rotation crop that supports soil health and opens markets in fibre, food, building materials, and wellness products.
In a region facing historic drought and soaring water prices that are crippling traditional crops like rice, hemp is a winter dryland rotation crop that needs no water allocation — grown on rainfall, as new NSW trials are demonstrating, on ground that already grows rice: a second income for the same hectare rather than a replacement for it.
The real prize is not merely growing it, but processing it here: local jobs and value-adding in this district, rather than raw commodities shipped elsewhere.
Some readers will recall my recent letter questioning a $10 million grant to an overseas-owned hemp venture. My concern was never hemp — it was who benefits.
That is why I am working with Edward River Council and the Yarkuwa Indigenous Knowledge Centre toward a locally owned hemp processing hub and showcase facility, designed to keep ownership, jobs, and returns in this community.
The film shows what became possible when ordinary people refused to accept that "it can't be done here."
Come to the Town Hall on July 22. Bring your questions, your experience as farmers and community members, and your ideas.
Let's discover what we can build together.
Yours etc.
Darryl J. Nicke II
Deniliquin
12°C