By Rebecca Radcliffe
16 June 2022

It all began when Ong-ard Panyachatiraksa, a farm owner in the north of Thailand who is licensed to grow medicinal cannabis, was wondering what to do with the many excess leaves he had amassed. He asked: could his brood of chickens benefit from the leftovers?

Academics at Chiang Mai University were also curious. Since last January they have studied 1,000 chickens at Ong-ard’s Pethlanna organic farm, in Lampang, to see how the animals responded when cannabis was mixed into their feed or water.

The results are promising and suggest that cannabis could help reduce farmers’ dependence on antibiotics, according to Chompunut Lumsangkul, an assistant professor at Chiang Mai University’s department of animal and aquatic sciences, who led the study.

The results are yet to be published but Chompunut has observed positive signs. Cannabis-supplemented chickens tended to experience fewer cases of avian bronchitis, and the quality of their meat – judged by the composition of protein, fat and moisture, as well as its tenderness – was also superior.

The medicinal and cooking benefits of cannabis have long been recognised in Thai tradition, said Chompunut: “It is the local wisdom of Thai people to use cannabis [leaves] as a food additive – mixing it as an ingredient to make chicken noodles. People put it in the soup to make it taste better.” She wanted to investigate the science behind such practices.

Ong-ard said the price of cannabis is still too high in Thailand for farms to easily incorporate it into chicken feed, but that recent legal reforms may change that. “As time goes by and we can grow more, it’s going to get better,” he said.

The chickens that have been fed with cannabis will sell for a higher price at the farm’s restaurant, he added. Chicken generally sells for 60 baht (£1.40) per kg, he said, but his chicken would go for double.

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