Interviews
Alan Dronkers: “HempFlax is producing the cleanest fibre in Europe (…) but it needs to move to the next level”
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Few names carry as much weight in the world of hemp and cannabis as the Dronkers family. From pioneering seed genetics to preserving the plant’s rich history, their contributions have been instrumental in shaping the cannabis industry as we know it today. At the heart of this legacy is Alan Dronkers, 57, a visionary deeply involved in hemp cultivation, sustainability and innovation. Son of Ben Dronkers and one of the founders of HempFlax, one of the oldest and leading hemp companies in Europe, Alan has dedicated decades to exploring the full potential of industrial applications, environmental benefits or regenerative agriculture with this plant.
His father, Ben Dronkers, who we have also spoken to for CannaReporter®, founded Sensi Seeds and the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum (in Amsterdam and also Barcelona), making the Dronkers name synonymous with preservation and progress in the global cannabis movement.
In recognition of his lifelong dedication to hemp research and advocacy, Alan received an honorary doctorate from the University of Rajabhat, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a prestigious institution known for its agricultural excellence. This honour underlines its profound impact on the global hemp industry and highlights the growing academic and scientific interest in the potential of cannabis, something Alan Dronkers is now dedicated to: passing on the knowledge and history of cannabis and hemp to future generations.
We spoke to Alan Dronkers at the Asia International Hemp Expo & Forum in Bangkok in November 2024 and learned more about his life story and his family’s intentions to sell HempFlax so it can move to the next level.
Alan, my first question is just pure curiosity about what it was like growing up as Ben Dronkers' son?
Very special, because not many people have a father like that. In a way, he was doing something that most of the world viewed in a very negative light, so sometimes it wasn't easy either. He forced me, from a very young age, to learn that science, for example, is not always real or true. In fact, science is corrupt. You can't trust science. I learned that when I was 17 or something. If there were problems with Ben and the authorities, I would go and talk to the Mayor, to try to move things forward. But for me, it really started when I got involved with the seeds and the Museum. And also at the Museum, if you have to look at any argument, that's what I learned: to really understand the argument, you always have to read what the other side of the story is saying. If you don't look or read or understand what the other side is trying to say, how can you figure out what might be real? So for me too (and it has always been like this), this way of life has put me in a situation where I don’t trust everything straight away. I always want to see what the different sides of the perspective are saying and only then can you formulate what you think is real. And it doesn’t have to be cannabis. At the end of the day, that’s just how it is. So I think because of my father and my life situation, I was forced to defend different positions on cannabis from a very young age. But you can only do that if you really understand all the arguments from the different points of view.
Alan Dronkers has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Rajabhat University in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo: DR | theartofmaryjanemedia.com
Cannabis has always been a part of your life, right? But do you remember when you first really understood what this plant was?
Yeah. Well, a funny story is that I also remember when I didn't know, I think. I was maybe eight or something like that, I was very young. And my dad said to me, 'Yeah, I smoke hashish here, but people don't understand. So we don't talk about it, you know?' The next day I went to school and I talked to my best friend and I told him, yes, my dad smoked hashish. And he asked me what it was and I said I didn't know. I still remember that... But yeah, I also started to understand the way society viewed this issue at a later age, and I was still very young - 16, 17, when I started to hear the different arguments, the different political ideas and, in the end, also the difference in science. And the funny thing is that even a long, long time ago, the media did the same thing that they do today: they repeat the same message all the time, the same words, even, to program people, and people don't really understand, you know? They even buy toothpaste because they think it makes their teeth white. And they don't realize that they've been programmed, because there are commercials on television every day telling us that this stuff makes our teeth white. Subconsciously, we're programmed. Yes, we're manipulated. And the same thing happens with advertising, where they tell people what to think, not only what to think, but also what to say to people who doubt the established idea. So I see a lot of this kind of thing, and the only reason I see it is because I grew up with a father like that.
“We are trying to sell HempFlax so that there can be money coming back into the company so that we can get to that level of solidity in the future.”
And do you still remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?
Yes, I remember. For a long time, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I have a passion for history. But on the other hand, the good thing is that because of the museum, I was able to get into the history of cannabis and hemp, which was a beautiful adventure in life to learn all these things.
And did you go to university or did you start working straight away?
I received an honorary doctorate here in Thailand, from Rajabhat University in Chiang Mai. I am very lucky to be an honorary doctor. That is very nice. But yes, I have always taught because of the Museums in Amsterdam and Barcelona. For the first 30 years we only had one – the one in Amsterdam. And there were always people who wanted to learn things. Schools came here, people from the police, government, whatever. There were always people who wanted to learn, so part of what I do is a lot of that. And especially in Thailand, I have not been working, but I have been talking to a lot of people, visiting a lot of universities and in a way I can teach and help a lot of people here.
You grew up in the Netherlands.
Yes.
Why did you move to Thailand? You've been living here for 18 years, haven't you?
Yes.
But why did you decide to live here?
Well, my wife is Thai and my children are Dutch and Thai, so that was a good reason. But another reason was that when I was on my own and didn't have a family, having all this responsibility for the cannabis plants, making seeds for Sensi Seeds, was already very stressful and dangerous in a way, because there's always miscommunication, misunderstandings and even though we do legal things, it's not very clear to a lot of people. So there's always the risk of bad things happening. Arrests or even burglars, you know? You have to worry about both criminals and the police. So when I got a family, it was a very different thing. And then when we got a license from the government to do our job, instead of being easier, things became more problematic and more dangerous. So it was strange that actually when we got a license to do what we wanted, things were less safe. So at that point I said, “Okay, this is going to take maybe another 50 years, but I can’t… so at a certain point I started to fade away and I thought it was better to get out of this situation, because it’s like a front line in a war. And you don’t want to be there if you have a family. If you’re a young person and you don’t have a family, it’s different.
When you have children, everything changes. So what year did this happen?
I left the Netherlands in 2007.
Alan Dronkers with Jack Herer and his father Ben in the 90s. Photo: Sensi Seeds
At the time, Sensi Seeds was already huge.
Yes, everything was already established at that time. So that wasn't the problem. The only problem was that our legal position and our work, breeding and producing seeds and everything, was changing and the laws were changing. And before the law was on our side, but then it changed and so we needed a license. So everything was a problem and at some point it was the last straw for me. Then I had a completely different life with my family here in Asia. For the first two years, I didn't talk about it to anyone, but only because I had been involved in it all my life up until that point. And it was really stressful and dangerous, even when it was legal. For the first 10 years that I was here, I just had my life with my family, but then I started going around, visiting different people, meeting different people who were interested in cannabis and hemp. Then I heard that the government and the army were talking about it and so there was an interest from different sources in this topic. I also knew that this was a very important part of Buddhist medicine, but I didn't know where to find these people. So initially, for a few years, I was looking for a temple or a monastery where this traditional medicine was still being used, but I couldn't find anything. Until I discovered that the Department of Traditional Medicine is under the government and the Ministry of Health. So I ended up visiting these people and getting to know them. And again, if you have any questions about anything, I have a lot of knowledge, so I can share it. Even with the Museum, I'm a bit of a walking encyclopedia, because I know a lot about history, the history of the Museum or legal issues, or the political side of history, seeds, animal husbandry, hemp, agriculture, the environment, all these things. I know how to make paper, or the funniest things, because I learned all of that. And I learned it because it was necessary for the business and to understand where the opportunities are for hemp. So, once again, we have to study, learn, discover and only then can we find a market or a way to help the entire industry.
So, from seed banks and Museums, how and when was HempFlax created?
In the early 90s, I was reading all these books and there was this German book from Hans Georg Behr. The title was 'Von Hanf ist die Rede'. From Hanf is the Rede. It was a book that taught not only about cannabis, but also about the history of hemp and the importance that this plant has had for thousands of years in all cultures of the world. And I think in 1991 I received the first copy of Jack Herer's book – The Emperor Wears No Clothes (The Emperor Wears No Clothes). And not long after that, in late ’91 or early ’92, I met Jack Herer in Amsterdam. Also, we already had a whole section on hemp in the museum, but also because of his inspiration. The history of hemp became a much bigger story in the whole history of this plant. So the inspiration came from there. In 1992, I had already gone with one of our company workers to visit the hemp industry that still existed in Hungary. But this was just before the [Berlin] Wall fell. So I was there when it was still communist, for a while. And the next year, 1992 or 1993, when we came back, it was legal. It was different, because they had copied American laws and ideas. So the Russians never cared about how much hemp Hungary was growing, but suddenly there were all these rules, and I remember the professor complaining about the communists, how horrible this country was because of communism all these years. There was only one telephone in the village where he lived, but the next year we came back and instead of complaining about the “damn communists,” he complained about the “damn Americans,” because now he couldn’t even grow hemp without all these rules and regulations and registrations, whereas before the Russians never cared about how much hemp was growing in Hungary. We were there to research hemp, but because of that, all over Eastern Europe and also in Russia, everything was falling apart. It wasn’t the right place to start. And there were still subsidies for industrial hemp in Europe and also in the Netherlands, even though nobody was growing it. So we ended up deciding to grow it ourselves in the Netherlands. My father purchased a small hemp processing company in 1993 and we had our first hemp harvest in 1994. So these are the same machines that everyone uses now.
“We had about 4.000 tons of fiber and no one wanted to buy it, because there was no industry that used it”
Since then, what have you improved at HempFlax? Where did you start and what is the current situation of the company?
Well, HempFlax is producing the cleanest fiber in Europe. So we've been around for 30 years, and I think we've built 10 lines of machines over the course of 30 years, or adaptations to the line of machines, so the innovation never stops. And HempFlax is processing the fiber completely mechanically, so there's no wet process, which reduces all the energy and all sorts of other equations in processing hemp. But even in this processing, we were the first, not only to make this harvesting machine, but also to cut the stalk into two-foot pieces. So instead of taking the whole long stalk and trying to process it, the machine in the field was already cutting it into two-foot pieces, because it doesn't matter what you're going to do with the fiber, even textile. You're never going to use the four-meter plant anyway. And that made everything work better. So this method became known as the HempFlax harvesting method. Many others follow this way of processing the crop.
What kind of products do you make?
Well, in the beginning there was no market, right? So we were the first to produce hemp. There was a French company that made cigarette paper. But as for the rest, there was no hemp in Europe, anywhere, only in Eastern Europe at that time, but it was still Eastern Europe, it was not connected. So nobody could tell us how to do it. The machines that were used in France were very small, because there were many small farmers who had made their own product. So for large industrial use it was not useful. We needed bigger machines to harvest faster. We had a situation where there was a 25-hectare field, and with this old machine from France that we also tried at that time, it took four hours to make a circle around the field and cut two meters of plants. (laughter) So just to harvest that field it took many days. So you can understand that it was necessary to scale up to this industrial level. At one point, in 1996 or 1997, we had about 4.000 tons of fiber and nobody wanted to buy it, because there was no industry that used it.
Not even in France?
Well, the French used to make paper, but we didn't get any orders from them. But fortunately, we got an order from a cigarette paper company in Turkey, and we were able to ship a boatload of fiber from the northern Netherlands to Turkey. And that's when we sold half of our 4.000-ton mountain. (laughter) Even in the automotive industry, it takes a long time for things to develop, because every time you introduce a new car model, you need a little bit more than the few thousand tons that the industry demands, so it's a slow process, this building of the market. And if you're a pioneer, you don't just have to do it, you also have to create or build the market. So most of our fiber goes to industrial use in the automotive industry. Some goes to insulation material, and most of our wood goes to horses, to animal bedding, and to small pets like rabbits and hamsters. Product development is still waiting for a number of things, like good processes and the next levels of development and investment that are needed. It took us 30 years to get to this level, but we have come to the conclusion that, once again, we need to make major investments to be truly solid in the future and also truly significant for the economy of our society. So there is still a lot to do.
But it's interesting that I created the company because I knew there were things that could be done with hemp.
Yes, because of our museum we knew all about its uses in history. But it's interesting that we started the company because we knew there were things that could be done with hemp.
Alan and Ben Dronkers were speakers on the same panel at AIHEF in Bangkok. Photo: Laura Ramos | CannaReporter®
There was no one who wanted to buy it, but then you had to figure out how to come up with uses for hemp again. What were the first uses? You mentioned the automobile and paper…
Yes, the first one was actually the hemp bedding business for horses. This saved a lot of labor because hemp can stay in the stables longer and it's also a healthier environment for the horse. There was an English company that had started half a year before us or something like that. We heard about it and it was very successful because for people who have horses, hemp is really the best material to use. It saves a lot of labor and labor is valuable time, people's time is very valuable. So by saving a lot of labor, it's healthier for the horses and all that stuff. So it was simple, the best of all kinds of tests and things like that. The horse magazines were publishing about it because it was the best product to use. That helped a lot. But then we see a lot of promise, like Hempcrete. There was a market for Hempcrete, but it was still small. After 30 years, it's still small. And I remember being at trade shows like this 25 years ago. This is a good example, you know, there was already a promise. There was already an Iso Chanvre in France, since 91 or 92, so they were already working with hemp, and I was at a trade show like this, where it was all about renewable or organic or ecological building materials, 25 years ago! I saw a lot of products, how to make houses or buildings or whatever, and many, many things were interesting. But if you ask me what is it? mainstream, after 25 years? Nothing. They still build houses the same way and even use more Styrofoam, plastic, glass wool and rock wool, and people have to live in a place like this. Literally breathing chemicals and microfibers that are dangerous for the lungs, but this is the reality. In Europe, it is still better than in the United States, because houses in the United States are almost like a plastic bag with some paper and tape, you know what I mean? Unfortunately, the natural building materials that should be mainstream, like hemp cement… – there are examples of houses almost everywhere, there are many people who have been promoting this – it is not yet mainstream, so we're still waiting for a lot of these things to happen.
“Our focus now is on what we are actually selling, which is the fiber that goes to the automotive industry”
What is HempFlax's main goal at the moment? What are you producing?
Our focus now is on what we're actually selling, which is fiber that goes to the automotive industry. But we actually adapted our machine line not too long ago to control the quality of the fiber, so that there are no other fibers in the middle or pollution, so that our fiber can go directly to a process where a kind of textile is made from it. But, like hemp, we can imagine that if there is a breakthrough in the cottonization of hemp that is really efficient, then this could be very important, but we've also been waiting for that for 30 years.
They also make some insulation materials…
Yes, we had a company in Germany that was producing insulation materials. But the problem is that you also have to build the market from scratch there. And that's very, very expensive. So we sold basically 90% of that company to a big multinational that's doing construction all over Europe and that also produces a lot of its own building material so that they can use it themselves. And we still provide fiber, but that was necessary to get to the next level. We couldn't scale that level. Yes, and that's why we're trying to sell HempFlax, so that there can be money coming back into the company, so that we can get to that level of solidity in the future.
I mean, sell the company or sell shares?
Just shares or the whole company, it doesn't matter at the end of the day. HempFlax has to go to the next level. We can't carry that, we're not big industrialists. We've been pioneers, we've been moving things forward, and yes, it's a big industry that we've created, but the level it has to reach needs the professional base, but also the financial base to be able to get there. It has that capacity, so I think it will happen.
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[Disclaimer: Please note that this text was originally written in Portuguese and is translated into English and other languages using an automatic translator. Some words may differ from the original and typos or errors may occur in other languages.]____________________________________________________________________________________________________
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With a degree in Journalism from the University of Coimbra, Laura Ramos has a postgraduate degree in Photography and has been a Journalist since 1998. Winner of the Business of Cannabis Awards in the category "Journalist of the Year 2024", Laura was a correspondent for Jornal de Notícias in Rome, Italy, and Press Officer in the Office of the Minister of Education of the 2018st Portuguese Government. She has an international certification in Permaculture (PDC) and created the street-art photography archive “What does Lisbon say?” @saywhatlisbon. Co-founder and Editor of CannaReporter® and coordinator of PTMC - Portugal Medical Cannabis, Laura made the documentary “Pacientes” in XNUMX and was part of the steering group of the first Postgraduate Course in GxP's for Medicinal Cannabis in Portugal, in partnership with the Military Laboratory and the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon.
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