GOOD FOR PEOPLE, GREAT FOR THE PLANET THE HEALING POTENTIAL OF HEMP BY CATHLEEN MITCHELL
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ith Earth Day this month, this is the perfect time to celebrate the beauty and power of nature— including our favorite plant: hemp. Hemp has recently emerged from its prohibition to acceptance with well-deserved fanfare, and it’s exciting to share some of the numerous (and sometimes surprising) ways that it can be used to help build a more environmentally sustainable world. Many people hadn’t heard about hemp until the modern cannabis and CBD industries emerged, but the truth is, hemp has been cultivated for its strong fibers for more than 10,000 years. It was discovered in rope on pottery in ancient China, where it was also used in paper and bow strings. The Japanese and Arabs learned about it from the Chinese, and then hemp made its way to Europe and Colonial America. By the mid-1600s, hemp was an economic staple with the Colonies producing cordage, cloth, canvas, sacks, and paper during the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. The first drafts of the Declaration of Independence were penned on hemp paper. Hemp fiber was so important to the young Republic that farmers were compelled by patriotic duty to grow it and were allowed to pay taxes with it. George Washington grew hemp and encouraged all citizens to sow hemp widely. Thomas Jefferson bred improved hemp varieties and invented a special brake for crushing the plant’s stems during fiber processing. What is it about hemp that’s causing many people to refer
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greenliving | April 2020
to it as a “wonder crop?” Relatively easy to grow, industrial hemp can thrive in most conditions. It requires about half of the water and acreage needed to grow cotton and doesn’t need much to protect it from pests and diseases. Factor in its ability to sequester carbon from the air and return nutrients to the soil from which it grows, and it’s easy to understand why farmland dedicated to hemp production in the United States has multiplied exponentially (by about 100 times, according to the USDA) over the past five years alone. Not only is the footprint of hemp much smaller than other widely used crops, but its use potential is vast and impressive. Tall, sturdy hemp plants can be used to make clothing, rope, shoes, paper, bioplastics, biofuels, and building materials that require a fraction of the resources we’ve been dedicating to other sources of those goods until recently. Hempcrete, a concrete-like material made of hemp and lime, has already proven to be an energy-efficient, breathable, moldresistant, versatile material that could replace the plastics and plasters currently used by homebuilders. If widely adopted, it could revolutionize construction during a time when the demand for eco-friendly infrastructure is steadily climbing. It’s more than just the fibers of hemp that can be put to use. Hemp seeds provide a nutrient-dense food source rich in fatty acids, vitamins and minerals that can be consumed raw, hulled, or in other forms such as milk, protein powder, greenlivingaz.com
