An announcement of federal funding has advanced plans for a hemp processing facility in Dauphin reinforcing the city's unofficial title as the Hemp Capital of Canada.

At a ceremony in Dauphin July 5, the federal government committed $3 million to the project through Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a foundation created by the government of Canada to support development and demonstration of green technologies.

The proposed Parkland Biofibre plant, the first of its kind in North America, is being developed as a pilot project to develop and demonstrate a process that will utilize raw industrial hemp fibre to produce insulation and other products such as horticultural matting, said Don Dewar, a Dauphin-area producer and president of Parkland Biofibre.

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