Development of Hemp market in Latvia

Hemp / Cannabis is a well-known traditional agricultural crop in Latvia and the Baltics in general, but its use is still narrow.

To help the hemp sector grow, we launched a six-month campaign to show both the general public and legislators the wider use of processed cannabis products.

In the campaign, we planned to use both economic experts and health and food experts, as well as to use the opportunities provided by social networks and traditional media.

The structure of the campaign includes three online seminars, in which we invite representatives from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to speak. We focus on highlighting the use of hemp / cannabis processing in food and healthcare, as well as the prospects for hemp cultivation in agriculture.

At the seminars, we also addressed the topic that the legislation should change the norms that would allow cannabis processing to a greater extent. The use of processed cannabis products in food and medical preparations is growing in European countries and Latvian and Baltic farmers have good market prospects that should be exploited.

We held a small campaign on social media – an interactive competition involving people to spread ideas about new product development opportunities from the hemp culture, and some winners were sent hemp products as prizes for active participation. This small competition was a good complement to the information and news about the serious expert seminars. We used traditional media to prepare opinion papers for several experts, so that the topic would be in the media environment on a regular basis. We also used regional media as a specific element, to which we offered publications on the mentioned topic.

We use informative resources from the professional association of cannabis growers, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Association of Neurologists, and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Latvia to create seminar publications.