Hokkaido
More actions
| Hokkaido | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| |
| Farmland on the rolling hills of Biei, seen from Shinei-no-oka | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 43.39, 142.56 |
| Country | Japan |
| Provinces/States | Hokkaido |
| Area | 78,500 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Hokkaido growing region covers the island of Hokkaido, the most northerly of the main islands of Japan, with the islands of Rishiri, Rebun and Okushiri. Hemp was a source of income for the island's settler farmers from the time of the Development Commission (Kaitakushi) in the 1870s, and at its peak about 1,500 hectares were sown there.[1]: 1–2 Cannabis now grows self-sown across the prefecture. The Hokkaido government runs a campaign against it from June to September each year, and in fiscal 2025 about 500,000 plants were pulled up.[2]
Geography
The region is drawn on the coastlines of the island of Hokkaido and of three islands off its west coast: Rishiri and Rebun in the north and Okushiri in the south-west. It covers about 78,500 km².
Hemp as a field crop
The Hemp Museum, a private museum at Nasu in Tochigi Prefecture, writes that in 1871 hemp seed from Tochigi was brought in for trial planting, and that after the farmer-soldier (tondenhei) system was set up in 1873, silkworm rearing and hemp growing were encouraged. Much of the fibre, it writes, went into nets for the sardine and herring fisheries, and hemp and flax growing were regular subjects at the Sapporo Agricultural College.[3]
A net-making works was built in Sapporo in 1875. Production then stalled until 1887, when the Hokkaido Seima Company was founded and the Hokkaido government began to promote the crop, and the area sown grew again. Because Hokkaido suited flax, the spinning industry soon turned from hemp to flax for its raw material, and military demand during the wars with China and Russia enlarged it.[1]: 2 The area under hemp in Hokkaido was 95 hectares in 1884 and 1,433 hectares in 1895. It was 224 hectares in 1915, 40 in 1925 and one hectare in 1935, and rose again to 159 hectares in 1945 and 131 in 1946.[1]: 2
The end of military demand after the Second World War cut the production of both hemp and flax, and the spinning industry declined with the Cannabis Control Act of 1948 and the spread of synthetic fibres. In 2011 one grower in Hokkaido held a licence to grow cannabis, on seven ares; Japan as a whole had 5.5 hectares, of which 4.6 were in Tochigi.[1]: 2
Self-sown cannabis
Each year from 1 June to 30 September the Hokkaido government runs a campaign to remove wild cannabis and illicit poppies. About 500,000 cannabis plants were removed across the prefecture in fiscal 2025, and every year people are arrested in Hokkaido for harvesting wild cannabis.[2] Landowners who find it growing on their land are asked to pull it up themselves and to tell the health office where it grew and how many plants they removed.[4]
Volunteers take part. In July 2025 the Lions Club of Bihoro removed about 4,000 plants growing on the outskirts of the town,[5] and in October 2025 the 17 members of the Lions Club of Tsubetsu pulled up the plants growing wild in their town.[6]
In August 2013 the Hokkaido government set up a committee to study industrial hemp as a crop.[1]: 1 At its first meeting a member said that a large amount of self-sown cannabis grew in Hokkaido and was removed every year without being cleared, and that pollen from it might cross with any low-THC crop that was planted. The committee's chair answered that the stands showed that Hokkaido's climate suited the crop.[1]: 11
Origin of the stands
The Hemp Museum writes that the plants pulled up in Hokkaido each year are remnants of the hemp once grown there as national policy.[3] A study at the National Research Institute of Police Science, funded from 2017 to 2020, found 24,135 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 144 samples of cannabis. Its final report states that wild cannabis in Hokkaido forms "a completely different group from the native Japanese species in Honshu".[7]
Growing Areas
No growing areas documented yet.
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality | Area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACE-JPN-HOK-0120190001 | Hokkaido Japan Reproduction 2019 |
Recent news
No recent news items.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Hokkaido Industrial Hemp Feasibility Committee (March 2014). 北海道における産業用大麻の作物としての可能性 報告書 [Report on the potential of industrial hemp as a crop in Hokkaido] (PDF) (Report) (in 日本語). Hokkaido Government. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 野生大麻・不正けし撲滅運動について [On the campaign to eradicate wild cannabis and illicit poppies] (in 日本語). Chitose Regional Health Office, Ishikari Subprefectural Bureau, Hokkaido Government. 27 July 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Hemp Museum (Taima Hakubutsukan) (13 June 2021). 「大麻栽培を政府が奨励した」明治時代の特殊事情 [The special circumstances of the Meiji era, when the government encouraged hemp growing]. Tōyō Keizai Online (in 日本語). Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 野生大麻・不正けし撲滅運動 [Campaign to eradicate wild cannabis and illicit poppies] (in 日本語). Pharmaceutical Affairs Division, Department of Health and Welfare, Hokkaido Government. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ Aoyama, Hideyuki (16 July 2025). 自生大麻4千本除去 美幌ライオンズクラブが奉仕活動 [4,000 self-sown cannabis plants removed: Bihoro Lions Club volunteers]. Hokkaido Shimbun (in 日本語). Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ Aoyama, Hideyuki (8 October 2025). 自生大麻を抜き取り 津別ライオンズクラブがボランティア [Self-sown cannabis pulled up: Tsubetsu Lions Club volunteers]. Hokkaido Shimbun (in 日本語). Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ Yamamuro, Tadashi. "Search for SNP markers for strain classification of cannabis and establishment of their rapid detection method". KAKEN. National Institute of Informatics. KAKENHI-PROJECT-17K15475. Retrieved 29 October 2026.