Amdanom ni · About
Building the Welsh
hemp economy.
From the ground up.
Hemp Cymru is not an advocacy organisation. It is not a campaign. It is the early infrastructure of a supply chain — the legal entities, the farmer relationships, the policy architecture, and the processing capacity that a Welsh hemp economy requires.
Cenhadaeth · Mission
Wales grew it before.
Wales can grow it again.
Hemp has been grown in Wales for centuries. The knowledge, the land, and the climate are all still here. What has been missing is the supply chain — the processing infrastructure, the cooperative structure, and the policy environment that turns a crop into an economy.
Hemp Cymru exists to build that infrastructure. Not to advocate for it. Not to campaign for it. To build it — entity by entity, relationship by relationship, acre by acre.
The goal is a circular Welsh hemp economy: grown here, processed here, used here, with value retained inside Wales at every stage of the chain.
Y Strwythur · The Structure
Three entities.
One supply chain.
Hemp Cymru Platform CLG is the operating entity behind this site. The Hemp Growers Co-operative and Hemp Processing & Trading Ltd are in formation — their legal instruments are being developed alongside the first growing season.
Hemp Cymru Platform
HCO Cymru Ltd
The public-facing entity behind this website. Responsible for communications, policy engagement, events, and the network infrastructure that connects farmers, investors, and government. This is the entity you are engaging with now.
Hemp Growers Co-operative
In formation
The farmer-owned vehicle through which growers will hold a direct stake in the processing margin — not just the farm gate price. The Co-operative instrument is being developed alongside the first growing season. Growers interested in founding membership should register via the Get Involved page.
Hemp Processing & Trading Ltd
In formation
The commercial processing and offtake entity, targeting the former naval depot at Trecwn, Pembrokeshire as its processing site. Responsible for retting, decortication, and the distribution of four output streams — fibre, hurd, seed, and biomass — into their respective Welsh industries. Legal formation underway.
Y Tim · The Team
The people
building it.
Strategic Adviser
Sonia Klein
Sonia began her career as a research scientist before becoming a successful international banker. Neither world satisfied the part of her that understood, with uncomfortable clarity, that the economy and the ecosystem were on a collision course.
Then came lockdown. Then came the decision. Three years and $1.6 million later, a novel patented process for creating hemp block — a construction material that performs like concrete and breathes like a living wall — had been pioneered, and four houses built with it in Iowa.
Sonia is completing a PhD at Aberystwyth University in the Political Economy of Hemp, sits as a Trustee of the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, and serves as Hemp Cymru's Strategic Adviser. Wales is next.
Co-founder & Director
Sam Sharkey
Sam's background spans construction, technical research, and entrepreneurship across multiple industries. The thread connecting all of it is a conviction that the most important problems are the ones nobody has yet organised around properly.
Hemp Cymru is that conviction applied to Wales. A generational industry, built from the ground up — the supply chain architecture, the legal structure, the policy relationships, and the technology platform that turns a crop into an economy. Sam's ambition is straightforward: to put Wales back on the map as a place that builds things that last.
Co-founder & Director
James Hunt
Biography forthcoming.
Co-founder & Director
Olwen
Biography forthcoming.
Co-founder
Gitti Coats
Biography forthcoming.
Co-founder
Nigel Stephens
Biography forthcoming.
Dysgu mwy · Learn more
Go deeper.
The Supply Chain
How seed becomes product — the full value chain from farm to industry.
Read →
Hemp in Wales
The economic case for a Welsh hemp sector, grounded in land and policy.
Read →
Hempcrete
The carbon-negative construction material Wales is positioned to lead on.
Read →
Hemp & Farming
Agronomics, licensing, and what hemp means for Welsh farm economics.
Read →