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green living
HEMP GETS HOT Meet the Hardest Working Plant on the Planet
A
by Julie Peterson
crop that was illegal in Right now, it’s inclusion in the 2018 Farm Bill, U.S. soil for more than the Wild West Rodale’s hemp web page hits have grown 10-fold. half a century is now of agriculture. reaching for the sun. Industrial hemp, the low- or no-THC ~Dustin Enge Better Products cousin to marijuana, has created All parts of the hemp plant high hopes among farmers, agricultural reare useful in multiple ways, and hemp searchers, manufacturers and consumers. By has applications in textiles, construction, 2019, America had become the world’s third- bioremediation, technology, nutrition and largest producer, behind Canada and China, health, including cannabidiol (CBD). The where it’s been cultivated for 8,500 years. seeds are rich in protein, essential fatty “It’s the fastest-growing ag industry acids and vitamins. They can be eaten, that we’ve ever seen,” says Tara Valentine, ground into flour or pressed for oil that is hemp specialist at the Rodale Institute, used for cooking or in body care products. in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Since hemp’s The stems undergo decortication to
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