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Country Women's Association (CWA) Tasmanian president Lindy Cleeland scrapes a mixture of chocolate and hemp seeds from her palms as she takes a break from rolling truffles.
"CWA ladies are not afraid to get our hands dirty and we're also not frightened to handle the sticky issues — that should be the headline," she laughs.
She's spent the afternoon navigating a small kitchen in a rented cottage in the northern Tasmanian city of Launceston with two other local CWA members.
They're assembling hemp seed-coated chocolate truffles and hemp seed-infused shortbread biscuits, which they plan to offer for free to patrons at the sprawling Agfest field days at nearby Carrick.
The tasty mouthfuls are set to become a weapon in the CWA's latest mission: to promote hemp seeds as a healthy, locally-grown food product.
The Tasmanian branch of the organisation has chosen hemp as its primary product of the year and encouraged its members to use the plant in cooking, sewing, craft and agriculture.
"We thought what a great opportunity, we've got all these wonderful members who are so talented and so innovative, let's introduce hemp," Ms Cleeland says.
They want to support a fledgling hemp seed growing and processing industry that has developed in Tasmania in the six months since the Australian Government legalised the human consumption of low THC hemp seeds.
Ms Cleeland lists the health benefits of hemp seeds.
"Hemp is gluten-free, it's very high in protein, it's allergen-free in the sense that people who, if you love nuts but you can't eat nuts, hemp has that great flavour in it."
CWA Tasmania vice-president Bev Perkins says people are often surprised by hemp seeds' nutty flavour.
"Hopefully they'll like them and want to go and buy hemp to cook with, because there's such a lot of thing you can do with it," she says.
In the 80 years since it was established, the Country Women's Association has often used food as a tool to promote social change.
"People will accept changes in food long before they'll accept changes in policies and in ideas," Ms Cleeland explains.
"It has been said that if you want to attract a politician's attention you give him something to eat and once his mouth's closed his mind will open for you."
The organisation has used the ploy in the past to campaign for women and children's interests in areas as diverse as food and housing security and access to medical marijuana and telecommunications services.
On the first day of Agfest the CWA tent is swarmed by patrons keen for a free taste of the hemp-seed foods.
The verdict of patrons is unanimously positive.
"I didn't think it would be as nice as it is, I thought it would be dry, but it's not, it's beautiful," Marjorie House says.
Another patron, Reece Bryant is pleasantly surprised.
"It just tastes like shortbread, you wouldn't know any different," he says.
A group of students from the Penguin District School are just as enthusiastic in accepting the shortbread.
"Like they looked really good, but I didn't expect this to be that good," student Jamie Chaston raves.
The shortbread runs out before lunch time.
George Town CWA member Trish Beriot is overwhelmed by the enthusiasm.
"Everybody's asking us if we're selling it, but we don't have any, even the seed bags they want to buy it," she laughs.
Lindy Cleeland described the successful experiment succinctly.
"We're saving the world one truffle at a time."
Topics: edible-plants, food-and-beverage, food-and-cooking, community-and-society, carrick-7291, tas, launceston-7250
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