In this episode, I chat with Hanna Navara, regenerative Hemp farmer, activist and permaculture enthusiast.

Hanna, with her partner Leon, runs Hemp Threads, a licensed industrial hemp company offering natural hemp based food products regeneratively farmed using sustainable principals in Kyogle, NSW.

It was a Permaculture course held at Mullumbimby community gardens alongside a Diploma in Organic Farming that really sparked Hanna’s interest in the plant world in a deeper way. 

Hanna had been heavily involved in environmental activism and had a passion for growing food and plants and found she really wanted to positively contribute to the solution of a healthy future for the people and our planet.

This passion to contribute, led her and her partner Leon towards an interest in growing hemp, which was inspired by the MardiGrass Festival in Nimbin, NSW. It was here,that she first got her hands on a jar of hemp seeds…

In 2018, Hanna and her partner Leon, with their jar of hemp seeds, engaged in a share farming journey in Broadwater on the Richmond river. The land was sandy flat swampland- and with neither her or partner hailing from a farming background, there were lots of lessons learnt.

Solum farm in the Clarence valley, a working Organic medicinal herb farm run by Cheryl and Mike Smith provided the next opportunity for Hanna and Leon. 

Here they spent, nearly 3 years, learning alongside Cheryl and Mike and planting out 3 hemp crops on about an acre of land. Hanna speaks of the many lessons learnt during this time, from inviting herbal allies like Calendula, Tulsi and Mugwort into her days, to the importance of having robust systems in place for harvesting, drying and packaging plant material.

Hanna and Leon now share farm in Kyogle, near the Border ranges where they have a little more space for their hemp and have this year planted out a 5 acre hemp crop. 

During our chat, Hanna brings an interesting perspective to the concept of self care. Rather than focussing on the individual practices that nourish her, Hanna zooms out and looks at self care from a very broad level. She talks about bringing in the systems thinking from her permaculture training to help her mind map out all the areas of her life and the balance she’d like to achieve- a mix of practical, spiritual and body care. 

Hanna was in the late stages of pregnancy when we chatted and was really enjoying leaning into herbal allies to support her- she speaks of her connection with blood building and nutritive Nettle, creating herbal elixirs and nourishing molasses based herbal syrups.  

We also explore all of the wonderful ways Hemp can be used for self care, both nutritionally and topically- from delicious salad dressings to bliss balls and nourishing herbal balms and oils.

 I think you’ll really enjoy hearing Hanna’s unique approach to self care, I certainly learnt a lot!

You can connect with Hanna via her website Hemp Threads, or on Instagram.

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The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.