April 18, 2010 – Drive down almost any road in rural British Columbia, and you will eventually see them: Huge trucks laden with logs, looming ahead of you, or in your rear-view mirror. Glance up to the mountainside above the roads, and you’ll see giant squares carved out of the forests, like some sort of titan’s chess game. Theses are sections of clear-cut trees, and this is logging country. Similar stories play out all over Canada, Indonesia, and Brazil.

After timber for construction, pulp production is the most common use of forest products, consuming 90 million cubic metres of wood a year, producing 23 million tons of pulp and paper products. Hemp produces four times as much fibre per hectare as wood, and does so in a sustainable way.

There are many barriers to the industrial-scale production of hemp, which would be required to replace tree pulp, but the benefits would be great.

One of the biggest barriers is public perception of the plant itself, as industrial hemp is a close relative of marijuana, the primary difference being the very low concentration of the psychoactive chemical THC in industrial hemp. Even at that, though, hemp was banned from cultivation in Canada until 1998, and even now production and disposal are tightly controlled. A license is required to grow industrial hemp, growers must submit to a criminal records check, and the precise GPS coordinate of a field must be registered and on file. Not only that, but seeds must be sterilized and any cultivation residue, especially seeds, flowers, and leaves, has to be cleaned up properly. Given these barriers to cultivation, why would anyone bother?

The key here is sustainability. Hemp can be planted as a crop, like wheat or canola, and harvested year after year following proper crop rotation. Boreal forests, on the other hand, take 50-100 years to regrow. With hemp producing 4 times the amount of fibre for a given area as wood, industry could stop using trees for paper almost entirely.

Cultivated hemp has many positive qualities aside from its fibre production. Material from the hemp plant can be used for food, vegetable oil, biofuels, for animal bedding, for concrete production, cloth, and even construction material in the form of medium density fibre board (MDF). Hemp plants, because they are fast growing and tightly planted, crowd out and kill off weeds, negating the need for herbicide treatment. While they are susceptible to disease and parasites, these afflictions usually don’t affect pulp production, and if a field is rotated every year, parasite problems will be reduced over time.

There is another advantage to rotating the crops. While hemp plants do require fertilizer, they leave behind nearly half of their mass, which can go on to provide nutrients for the next crop rotated in. The soil is loose, thanks to the plant’s root network and deep taproot, and the soil will initially be weed-free, at least until wind-blown seeds take root.

At the current time, however, hemp fibre is roughly 6 times more expensive than fibre from trees. Since hemp can only be harvested once a year, there are storage costs, as pulp and paper demand and production continues year–round. Stored fibre requires largely manual handling, which also increases costs. Harvesting methods are antiquated, and haven’t seen any update since before the 1950s, when hemp was originally outlawed.

If the costs could be brought down, hemp would become an attractive and economic source of fibre for pulp and paper, along with other industries. It is a sustainable product, and could go a long way towards preserving Canada’s and the world’s, surviving wild forests. By Colin Dunn. Source.

March 30, 2010 – I hate seeing a wasted resource. I hate seeing a resource wasted. But the reason we don’t see more hemp in our lives, in our clothes, food, material palettes for product manufacturing and so on, is that certain people are afraid that WE will get wasted if hemp is widely grown and available.

You see, hemp is classified scientifically as Cannabis sativa — a member of the mulberry family — with hundreds of varieties, including the demon weed, marijuana. But industrial hemp is bred to maximize fiber, seed and/or oil, while marijuana varieties seek to maximize THC (delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana). While hemp has been grown for at least the last 12,000 years for fiber (textiles and paper) and food, it has been effectively prohibited in the United States since the 1950s. In fact the US Army and US Department of Agriculture promoted a “Hemp for Victory” campaign to grow hemp in the US during WWII. Hemp helped win the war. But hemp as a brilliant history and could have a bright future, according to the North American Industrial Hemp Council.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. Because of its importance for sails (the word “canvas” is rooted in “cannabis”) and rope for ships, hemp was a required crop in the American colonies.

Hemp has been and still is part of industry. Henry Ford experimented with hemp to build car bodies. Today, BMW is experimenting with hemp materials in automobiles as part of an effort to make cars more recyclable. Hemp oil once greased machines. Most paints, resins, shellacs, and varnishes used to be made out of linseed and hemp oils, and Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil. Hemp is a valuable commodity.

But you can’t get high from hemp- not that I’ve tried, I swear. It has a negligible THC content- you’d pass out from trying to smoke enough to get a buzz, not from the buzz itself. Hemp’s real immediate value is in textiles, not tokes. Hemp fibers are longer, stronger, more absorbent and more mildew-resistant than cotton, and block solar UV rays more effectively than other fabrics. Canada is now growing hemp again- as a cash crop. Over 30 industrialized democracies distinguish hemp from marijuana to their profit, and international treaties regarding marijuana make an exception for industrial hemp. Besides, hemp and marijuana don’t mix, economically. Marijuana is grown widely spaced to maximize leaves. Or so I’ve heard.  Hemp is grown in tightly-spaced rows to maximize stalk and is usually harvested before it goes to seed. Hemp growers can’t hide marijuana plants in their fields.

Plus it’s good for the planet. The long fibers in hemp allow hemp paper to be recycled several times more than wood-based paper.

Due to lower lignin content, hemp can be pulped using fewer chemicals than wood. Its natural brightness needs no chlorine bleach, so no toxic dioxin waste escapes into streams. A kinder and gentler chemistry using hydrogen peroxide (the same natural chemical that makes our hair go gray), can bleach hemp fibers.
Hemp grows well in a variety of climates and soils. It is naturally resistant to most pests and grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so pesticides herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop. Hemp can substitute for cotton which accounts for the lion’s share the world’s pesticides.

Hemp can also substitute for wood fiber and save forests for watershed, wildlife habitat, recreation and oxygen production, carbon capture (reduces global warming), and other values. And hemp can yield 3-8 dry tons of fiber per acre, 4 times what an average forest can yield.

Hemp is also good for your body. Hemp oil is rich in polyunsaturated fats (the “good” fats). It’s high in some essential amino acids. In fact, “gruel” was originally made of hemp seed meal. Hemp oil and seed can be made into tasty and nutritional products like hemp butter.

Let’s quit wasting this wonderful crop because we’re afraid that a few people might get “wasted”! I own a hemp shirt, and though I feel good every time I wear it, it’s because of what that’s soft fiber is doing for the planet, not my head. I don’t even crave a donut.

Source.