Long-form Research Disclosure
Project Purpose
The Industrial Hemp Environmental and Economic Assessment is an objective, evidence-based project for New England Landcare Network member organisations. It is testing whether industrial hemp represents a commercially viable, environmentally defensible and strategically relevant opportunity for agricultural producers, regional communities and Landcare member organisations across the member-organisation region.
The project is not intended to promote or oppose industrial hemp. It is designed to identify opportunities, risks, limitations and evidence gaps.
Direct participant research has not commenced. This disclosure statement describes the intended approach and safeguards for later approved research involving growers, supply-chain participants, advisers, partners, community members and other contributors.
Standards Alignment
The project aims to align with established Australian research disclosure and governance expectations, including:
- the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council and Universities Australia National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2025;
- the NHMRC / ARC / Universities Australia Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2018;
- Australian Privacy Principle-style collection notice expectations, including clear explanation of why information is collected and how it may be used, informed by OAIC APP 5 notification guidance;
- responsible disclosure of funding, organisational interests and possible conflicts of interest, informed by NHMRC guidance on disclosure of interests and management of conflicts of interest.
This statement does not claim formal Human Research Ethics Committee approval. If a later funded or partner-led project requires formal ethics review, participant information and consent material should be reviewed and updated before collection begins.
Research Methods
Future research may use:
- short paper or online forms;
- semi-structured phone or video interviews;
- meeting, workshop or field-day feedback forms;
- targeted follow-up discussions with specialists, growers, processors, buyers, advisers, partners or community participants;
- grower, processor, buyer, adviser, Landcare, partner and community surveys;
- trial, demonstration or field-day feedback where any future trial or demonstration activity is approved and appropriately governed;
- internal synthesis workshops using de-identified or aggregated evidence.
The research will use neutral questions and will distinguish:
- measured or documented evidence;
- participant-reported fact;
- participant estimate;
- opinion or perception;
- confidential material;
- follow-up leads that require verification.
Interview comments and survey responses will be treated as evidence leads unless corroborated by other interviews, documents or credible secondary sources.
Participant Groups
The proposed initial participant groups are:
| Stream | Main evidence sought |
|---|---|
| Growers and non-adopters | Production experience, costs, yields, buyer access, adoption barriers and reasons not to grow hemp. |
| Post-harvest processors | Processing services, fees, capacity, intake windows, specifications and freight constraints. |
| Raw and post-harvest material buyers | Demand for harvested or intermediate material, price logic, volumes, specifications and purchasing terms. |
| Manufactured and wholesale product buyers | Demand and requirements for finished or wholesale products. |
| Landcare leadership | Governance, strategic fit, role appetite, evidence thresholds and reputational risk. |
| Partners and stakeholders | Funding fit, partner appetite, possible roles, governance needs and delivery constraints. |
| Community and consumers | Public understanding, product awareness, concerns, stigma or confusion and communication needs. |
| Agronomists, researchers and advisers | Regional suitability, agronomic risk, environmental comparators and technical evidence gaps. |
Regulators, policy advisers and political stakeholders may be contacted for targeted clarification where needed.
Information That May Be Collected
Depending on the participant group, the project may collect:
- stakeholder category, geography and product-pathway relevance;
- views, experience, estimates and information needs;
- production, processing, buying or advisory experience;
- broad commercial ranges, such as price bands, cost categories, volume ranges or service conditions;
- environmental priorities and expected comparator land uses;
- views about New England Landcare Network or member-organisation roles;
- optional demographic information for aggregate communication planning and audience-pattern analysis;
- optional follow-up contact details.
Participants should avoid providing private, confidential or commercially sensitive material unless a specific confidential follow-up process has been agreed.
How Information Will Be Used
Information may be used to:
- check questions that cannot be answered from published reports, public data or desktop research alone;
- decide whether a larger funded or partner-supported research project is justified;
- decide whether future grower trials, demonstration activities, workshops or more detailed technical studies would be useful and appropriate;
- identify which product pathways require further investigation, should be held, or should be deprioritised;
- improve research questions, interview guides, evidence registers and decision-support material;
- prepare aggregated and anonymised summaries for project reporting;
- share de-identified aggregate feedback with participants where useful for benchmarking and project learning;
- inform future scoping, funding-readiness and partner discussions.
Participant research material must not be used to make final business-case conclusions unless it has been reviewed, classified and assessed with the rest of the evidence base.
Safeguards
| Safeguard | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Voluntary participation | Participants may decline, skip questions or stop participating. |
| Consent | Participants should understand the purpose of the research, how information may be used and what may be published before providing information. |
| Privacy | Names, contact details, raw notes and identifying details must remain outside the publishing layer. |
| Commercial sensitivity | Exact prices, volumes, margins, contract terms, buyer requirements, customer names and processor capacity details should not be published without explicit permission. |
| Anonymisation and aggregation | Published or circulated summaries must combine, generalise or anonymise responses unless permission for attribution has been recorded. |
| Small-cell protection | Summaries must avoid tables or combinations of details that could identify a participant. |
| Demographic baseline | Demographic responses are optional and may be used only in combined, anonymised summaries for communication planning and audience-pattern analysis. |
| Evidence classification | Findings should be tagged by source type, geography, product pathway, assessment perspective, confidence and follow-up need. |
| Publication review | Any primary-research-derived material must be reviewed for privacy, commercial sensitivity and reputational risk before publication. |
Publication Controls
The controlled publishing layer is the docs/ folder. Raw contact sheets, raw interview notes, completed forms, private comments, personal contact details and commercially sensitive information must not be placed in that folder.
Published material may include:
- anonymised response counts;
- broad stakeholder categories;
- product-pathway themes;
- aggregated role-preference or concern themes;
- broad commercial ranges where they cannot identify a participant or business;
- confidence ratings and unresolved gaps;
- named public sources where the information is already public or permission has been granted.
Published material must not include identifiable participant comments, private contact details, confidential commercial terms or information provided in confidence unless explicit permission has been recorded.
Funding And Interests
At this stage, the project should be described as a staged assessment and planning process, not as a confirmed funded research program.
Future funding, partner support or delivery roles may be explored if the evidence shows that more detailed work is justified. Any future funder, sponsor, partner role or material organisational interest should be disclosed in participant information and in public-facing project material where relevant.
Funding or partner involvement must not be allowed to turn the project into promotional activity. Research and communication outputs should continue to present risks, uncertainty, no-adoption logic and unresolved evidence gaps.
Participant Options
Participants may:
- decline to participate;
- skip any question;
- provide ranges or general descriptions instead of exact commercial details;
- ask for a confidential follow-up discussion rather than writing sensitive information on a form;
- decline audio recording where recording is proposed;
- request correction of a factual error in unpublished material where practical;
- ask not to be contacted again;
- ask how their information may be summarised or published.
Where information has already been aggregated, anonymised or incorporated into reviewed project summaries, full withdrawal may not always be practical. This should be explained before information is collected.
Limits To Confidentiality
The project will take reasonable steps to protect participant privacy and commercial sensitivity. Confidentiality cannot be absolute where:
- the same information is already public;
- a participant gives permission for attribution;
- legal disclosure is required;
- the information is so specific that de-identification is not practical;
- a participant includes identifying or confidential material in a form despite being asked not to do so.
Where possible, sensitive decision-relevant information should be recorded as ranges, categories or generalised themes.
Communication Back To Participants
Where useful, the project may share de-identified aggregate summaries back with participants. The purpose is to help growers, processors, buyers, advisers, Landcare members and community respondents compare their own position with the broader evidence without identifying other contributors.
Participant feedback summaries should be clearly labelled as draft, interim or final, and should not imply that industrial hemp is commercially viable, environmentally beneficial or recommended for adoption unless the evidence supports that conclusion.