Hemp Collective featured in ‘SLOW JOURNAL’ Magazine
Words by Jane Deane
It’s amazing what the ground can tell you about the place your two feet are standing on if you care to listen just a little while.
The quality of the soil, the way the landforms and the plant and animal species that reside there all contribute to the energy and quality of what we choose to grow.
Nestled in the Byron Hinterland and perched on a hill overlooking the Byron Shire, Maxine and Mike Shea from Hemp Collective Byron has been working with a fertile piece of land, rich in aboriginal history and blessed by the local Bundjalung people.
Their crop of choice is hemp or Cannabis sativa, abundant in its many uses and healing properties, but certainly not without its challenges including a misunderstood history and the current climate crisis.
Maxine and Mike were kind enough to take us on a tour of their crop and let us wander through the plants which would soon be harvested and transformed into their locally made range of shampoo’s, conditioner’s, soap’s and some new pet products coming soon.
Respectfully farming the sacred land, their crop is completely organic, free from pesticides and insecticides and furthermore, their end products are packaged with the environment in mind.
With numerous health benefits including skin and heart health, reducing inflammation and boosting immunity, hemp is also a crop that gives back to the earth by producing high quantities of biomass, a matter which returns to the soil and decomposes feeding nutrients back into the soil, as well as absorbing heavy metals, toxins and co2 from the air!
More than farmers, Maxine and Mike are teachers and ambassadors for raising awareness and educating the community about the benefits of hemp for people and the planet.
In their fourth year of growing hemp and over 8 years of research, Maxine and Mike run Hemp Education Courses in Mullumbimby. SLOW journal is absolutely proud as punch to align with Hemp Collective Byron and share their wealth of knowledge through an ongoing hemp education column within our pages. Hemp is not the newest ‘trend’ in fact it’s been an integral part of human culture since ancient times and thanks to people like Maxine and Mike it’s making a massive comeback and we are here to share with you why it’s here to stay!
Read more of SLOW JOURNAL here at this link.