Story
BAFA Badische Naturfarbenaufbereitung GmbH (Managing Director: Bernd Frank) was founded in 1996, the year industrial hemp cultivation was re-legalized. As a link between agriculture and industry, BAFA was the first German hemp fiber processor to mechanically process local hemp straw into fibers and shives.
Right from the start, attention was also paid to the areas of seed propagation, sowing and harvesting, as well as the industrial processing and marketing of the products obtained. There was a lot to be developed, as a lot of knowledge about this thousands of year old cultivated plant had been lost due to decades of banishment.
Renewable raw materials are now playing an increasingly important role in our economic cycle. Hemp is an outstanding renewable raw material due to its versatile uses and excellent properties as a cultivated plant.
Today's BAFA Neu GmbH is a company that markets predominantly regionally grown hemp. Regional has meant regional in France since 2011, as the production facility was completely relocated to France - in the middle of a region where hemp cultivation traditionally plays a major role.
In the industrial, mechanical production process, fibers are separated from shives and the fiber fractions are delivered to the processing industry in a customized manner. The shives are cleaned, dusted and bagged and sold as animal bedding, building material or substrate for food production (mushrooms, cress, etc.) and sold from France via Malsch throughout Germany and far beyond. Sensible logistics chains make it possible for all products to be available either from the Malsch warehouse or at the customer's location at low cost within a few days.
BAFA is also actively involved in product developments made from fibers and shives in order to broaden the market for your products. BAFA made a significant contribution to the development and building approval of the thermal hemp mat, the first building-approved hemp insulation material in Germany. BAFA is also involved in the development of injection-mouldable hemp fiber PP pellets and a wide range of other applications.
BAFA also plays a pioneering role in harvesting technology. The so-called hemp harvester was developed in collaboration with the partners Götz Landtechnik GmbH, Deutz-Fahr GmbH and the State Institute for Plant Production. This was used for the first time in 2000 and has since increased the economic efficiency of hemp cultivation enormously, as it can harvest both the straw and the hemp seeds, which are valuable in every respect, from a cultivated area in just one step. There are already 20 of these hemp harvesters in use across Europe.
