This is part five of a ten-part podcast series documenting the European Industrial Hemp Association's 23rd Annual Conference in Poznan, Poland, at the Institute of Fiber Plants and Medicinal Medicine, June 10-12.
Colin Steddy is a grassroots farmer from Western Australia who got into hemp in 2005 after selling his farm following two droughts and a divorce. He's a no-till advocate, a carbon thinker and someone who speaks from the heart about soil biology and systems thinking.
"Everything affects something else. So you gotta understand when you make one decision what around it gets affected because it's not a single thing that makes things work," Steddy said.
Steddy grew up on a sheep farm south of Perth, learned to shear, and spent decades in cropping and controlled traffic farming. He's been knocked down three times by deals worth five million dollars or more that fell through — each time he picked himself up.
At 42, he lost his farm and had to start over. Hemp gave him that second chance. What draws Steddy to the Poznań conference isn't theory. It's reality.
"They're not talking about s*** and they're not talking about the warm and fuzzies, they're talking about the things that happen and the obstacles they're faced," he said.
He points to a Ukrainian hemp processor whose buildings were bombed, who lost power for three months, but kept moving forward. Real people doing real things — not scientists studying irrelevant data.
On carbon credits, Steddy is clear: they're icing on the cake, not the foundation. Carbon credit schemes are political and can disappear overnight. The real work is building soil organic matter through farming practices you should be doing anyway.
His advice to farmers: find a partner who covers baseline costs and shares credit returns. Get your baseline established early, before you start your regenerative journey, so you capture the financial benefit. And remember biochar isn't just a home for soil biology — it's a condominium. But you have to stock it with food: minerals, nutrients and plants. Everything affects something else.
Learn More
Hemp Inside
https://hempinside.com.au
The Hemp Corporation
http://thehempcorp.com.au
iHemp NSW
https://ihempnsw.org.au
Institute of Natural Fibers and Medicinal Plants (IWNIRZ)
https://iwnirz.pl
Institute of Natural Fibers and Medicinal Plants (IWNIRZ)
iwnirz.pl
European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA)
eiha.org/
EIHA Conference
eiha-conference.org/
Thanks to Our Sponsors
Condor Seed
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HEMI — The Hemp Education and Marketing Initiative
thegoodnessofhemp.org
Bish Enterprises — FiberCut Hemp Harvesting
bishenterprise.com/fibercut
1937 International
1937international.com
