AEB hemp expert takes dais at Melbourne expo

Last Sunday, December 3, cannabis/hemp experts addressed the Hemp Health and Innovation expo at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

One of those experts was Andrew Kavasilas, Executive Director of Queensland Bauxite subsidiary MCL. Another was James Vosper, President of the Australian Hemp Alliance and founder of Powerfood, an on-line business that sells hemp seed, hemp oil, hemp meal and hemp protein powder.

In August AEB announced that it had recruited Vosper to "assist and advise" on the company's expansion into the field of medical marijuana.

It noted that Vosper had spent more than 30 years in business management and had worked with brands such as Apple and IBM and companies GSK and Procter & Gamble.

While Vosper may not have written last Friday's Q&A spiel posted by AEB's new Managing Director Malcolm James, it's clear he's been backgrounding James on the importance of key cannabis/hemp attributes and the value of R&D.

On Sunday, Vosper addressed an audience of about 50 Expo "hempsters" for almost 20 minutes.

He didn't mention AEB. But he noted that Uruguay - where AEB is taking a a 25% share of one of only two Federally licensed cannabis operations - produces many varieties of seeds and shares the 23.5 degree parallel with Australia.

Vosper made these main points:

, There are many ways to make money out of hemp

. If you you think its all about medicine you need to think again. "There are other sides to the hemp market that outweigh medicine many-fold".

. Australia has 50% of the world's organic land. This land could be used to produce hemp for such things as apparel, car parts, plastic equivalents, houses and beer.

. Hemp fibre can replace graphene sheets in batteries.

. Hemp products are being used by Body Shop, adidas and Nike.

"The industry will be a trillion dollar industry", Vosper said.

"Australia is uniquely placed to be the head producer of the Asia Pacific region.

"The economic benefits are almost immeasurable".