Proposals to transform Ireland’s State-owned bogs into vast cannabis farms have gone up in smoke, it has emerged.
Bord na Móna last year held meetings with then minister for health Simon Harris and then minister of State for natural resources Seán Canney about giving over thousands of hectares of its landbank to cultivating marijuana for medical use.
A feasibility study was ordered into whether farming the drug could replace traditional turf-cutting by the semi-State body, which is undergoing a “Brown to Green” strategy to switch to a low-carbon, sustainable business model.
However, the company has confirmed it is shelving the plan for the foreseeable future as it prioritizes other projects – such as re-wetting bogs – in an attempt to safeguard hundreds of jobs, mostly in the midlands, over the coming years.
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