CROP INNOVATION

Industrial Hemp: Gaining Respect With U.S. Farmers
Industrial hemp produces high quality fibers, seeds, and oils

Mention the word hemp and people snicker. Members of the North American
Industrial Hemp Council (NAIHC) understand this. Their first goal is to get a
little respect.

They want to change public perception by distancing their product from its
illegal and distinctly different cousin, marijuana. They’d like Americans to
understand what is already apparent to the rest of the world that
industrial hemp produces high quality fibers, seeds, and oils that have 350
to 400 valueadded uses.

Finally, they want to change laws and prepare the way for this ancient crop
to once again be a viable crop for American farmers that will spawn new
industries, create jobs and pump millions of dollars into the U.S. economy.

It isn’t just a pipe dream (no pun intended) for John Roulac, secretary of
the NAIHC. This serious young man in buttondown shirt and dark suit is an
articulate proponent of hemp. He’s joined on the Council by credible,
educated and conservative farmers and businessmen from throughout the U.S.
and Canada.

There are two varieties of the hemp plant cannabis sativa: one is pot, the
other is industrial hemp. Roulac and others on the NAIHC freely admit they
mist rid their product of its counterculture image. “Although they’re in the
same family, they’re not anything alike,” Roulac says. He used dogs as an
analogy. “They’re both canines, but you wouldn’t have any trouble telling a
rottweiler from a poodle.”

Industrial hemp contains 1 percent, or less, of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC),
the substance which causes marijuana’s euphoric effect. “Hemp has no
psychoactive qualities: You couldn’t get high, even if you smoked a thousand
hemp cigarettes,” Roulac says.

It is also grown differently. Industrial hemp is produced for fiber, not the
leaves. It is planted closely, like corn, and shoots skyward in long, slender
stalks. Some 300 hemp plants are grown in a square yard, whereas only one
marijuana plant is grown in the same area to reap the benefits of its buds.
Hemp requires little management beyond irrigation, and no pesticides. Its
fast growth overrides weeds, so herbicides aren’t used either.

But the bottom line, say Hemp Council representatives, is they want to learn
just what the bottom line is. They want to be able to grow hemp in research
plots in a number of locations and soils in a number of locations and soils
to test production costs and obtain yield data. They also want to see if
there is a sufficient market for it and learn if it can be competitive with
other fiber crops to make paper and textiles.

Hemp dates back at least 10,000 years. Man made the first rope by stripping
apart the hemp stalk’s long, sinewy fibers. Chinese, as early as 4,500 B.C.,
made fish nets with it and later, paper.

Hemp production was so important to commerce in the Colonial period that is
1640 the governor of Connecticut made cultivation of hemp mandatory.
Presidents Washington and Jefferson were hemp farmers, and the first two
drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper.

It gained even more potential in 1917 when a machine to separate hemp fiber
from the stalk was invented. In the early 1930’s, the term “chemurgy” was
coined to describe the bringing together of agriculture and the organic
chemical industry. Proponents touted the idea that anything could be made
from a hydrocarbon could be made from a carbohydrate.

Auto maker Henry Ford even went so far as to build an almost indestructible
prototype car formed from hemp and sisal cellulose plastic. Magazine articles
hailed hemp as the “New Billion Dollar Crop.”

But production, research and further development diminished when Congress
passed the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937. It levied an onerous tax of $1 per
ounce on hemp manufacturers, distributors and every Hemp transaction. It was
supposed to exclude farmers, but only a few in Wisconsin continued to grow
hemp into the 1950’s when they let their permits lapse.

Hemp was placed under the Drug Enforcement Administration’s 1972 Controlled
Substance Act. Although DEA has the right to allow growing permits, it isn’t
eager to hand them out. Industrial Hemp proponents would like to see crop
oversight shifted to the USDA.

Seed stock is another drawback to reigniting the industry. Because of
declining interest in the crop and its sullied reputation, all the seed held
by USDA in the Colorado germ plasma repository was destroyed. Now, industrial
hemp seed has to be bought from Europe. It is scarce and expensive.

Erwin A. “Bud” Sholts is the NAIHC chairman and strongly favors research and
development of hemp in the U.S. He is an economist and 31year veteran of
the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture whose title is Director of
Agricultural Development and Diversification.

Sholts expects legislation to allow hemp research to move forward in 12 to
16 states this year. “We’re two years into a sevenyear phaseout of
commodity support programs,” says Sholts. “We’d better have some crop
alternatives ready to help farmers make money. It will be interesting to see
if reason prevails over paranoia.”

After all, industrial hemp is grown in 26 countries. International trade
agreements (GATT and NAFTA) recognize movement and trade of industrial hemp
by designating a limit of 0.3 percent THC content. China, Hungary, Romania
and Thailand are the four largest exporters of hemp to the U.S.

England, France, Germany and Australia have enacted policies to attract
foreign currency by growing hemp. Sholts says England has set up a hemp
permitting process for farmers and has had no problems. “Their inspectors go
into the fields a few times a year. They snip some leaves and test them. If
it tests above the THC threshold, it’s burned in the field. They haven’t had
to destroy any yet,” Sholts says, “and they don’t even have fences around
their fields.”

Sholts is convinced hemp will be attractive to American textile and paper
producers. “Hemp has a fiber length of 67 millimeters; whereas wood and
kenaf fibers are generally about half that length.” He says a drawback to
paper recycling operations is a breakdown in the sludge and fiber strength
after it has been done a few times. “Just add some hemp to it and it can be
used indefinitely,” Sholts predicts.

Hemp is currently getting a big play in the fashion industry with catalog
sales and new businesses popping up weekly. All use imported materials. Hemp
clothing typically lasts 10 years, compared with five for cotton and hemp is
said to “breathe” better than any other fabric. Bigname designers Giorgi
Armani, Calvin Klien and Ralph Lauren are reportedly increasing hemp use in
their clothing lines.

As to public perception, NAIHC believes change is well under way. In
January, there were indepth articles about hemp in the Washington Post and
U.S. News and World Report. The conservative 4.5 millionmember American Farm
Bureau Federation enacted policy in January 1996 supporting industrial hemp
research. And, in Kentucky, where hemp was a mainstay crop in the 1700’s, a
Governor’s Task Force studied Industrial hemp potential.

Gale Glen, a beef and tobacco farmer from Winchester, Ky., who now sits on
the NAIHC, was appointed to the blue ribbon panel.

Although she readily admits the twoyear efforts of the task force failed to
get action by the legislature, “we did get rid of the snicker factor.” There
was plenty of public debate about the differences in hemp and pot. “I stood
up there as a 66yearold grand mother I sure don’t want my grandchildren
exposed to drugs, but I defended the need for farmers to have the option of
growing hemp as a rotational crop.”

Glenn says after the task force finished its work, the Kentucky Hemp Growers
Cooperative Association had the University of Kentucky survey public opinion
from a broad cross section of Kentucky citizens. Results showed 77 percent of
them knew what industrial hemp was and the same percentage felt farmers of
Kentucky should be allowed to grow it. (END)

(NEXT: Page 6) Southern Companies Promote Benefits Of Industrial Hemp

Industrial hemp is gaining momentum in the South, due partially to the
development and marketing strategies of two southern companies.

Industrial Ag Innovations of Poplar Bluff, Mo., has pioneered the use of
Industrial hemp in construction materials with the development of MDF board,
manufactured with Industrial hemp core and an agriculturalbased resin. They
are also prepared to provide seed to U.S. farmers.

The company has campaigned for legislation allowing Missouri farmers to grow
Industrial hemp domestically.

Industrial Ag Innovations was founded by Boyd Vancil, a third generation
farmer from southeast Missouri. “We have established a local valueadding
chain in order to manufacture products within the community,” Vancil says of
his approach to encourage local farmers about the potential for local (hemp)
markets to increase.”

The Galloway Fields Company, located near Memphis, Tenn., was formed by Dr.
John Diggs and Dr. Anne Cook. The company researches economic possibilities
for Industrial hemp in the South. “We are excited about the possibility to
create two products on the farm from one crop this will give a better
profit margin to the farmer,” says Diggs.

Industrial hemp is composed of one layer of outer fiber called the “bast”
and an inner layer of wood called “hurd.” These two layers each have
different endmarket uses.

The Galloway Fields Co., also publishes a newsletter describing the impact
Industrial hemp can make in the South. Both companies actively seek markets
for Industrial hemp fiber and hurd by providing samples for testing, product
development services, and market evaluations. (END)