
The Race to Relearn Hemp Farming - oblib
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-race-to-re-learn-hemp-farming/
======
Animats
What's the interest in hemp other than for marijuana? It's the least useful of
the bast fibers. Sisal, jute, and manila all have big markets. Hemp and kenaf
are niche products. The EU has allowed hemp production for years and it's
still a tiny business.

~~~
morog
Hulled hemp seed sells for about £10 for 200g in my local organic shop. Then
there's oil which by many measures is healthier than olive oil.

Apart from food and CBD, hemp is generally more environmentally friendly than
cotton and grows in a far wider range of climates and is softer than the
fibres you mentioned.

Then there are cosmetics, hempcrete, animal feed, bioplastics, etc...

~~~
credit_guy
> Then there's oil which by many measures is healthier than olive oil.

I found this statement hard to believe, so I checked. I can confirm you are
right, and by a large margin. Wikipedia has a comparison of vegetable oils
[1]. Hemp oil has the most polyunsaturated fatty acids, at 82%. However, it
has a low burning point, so I guess it's best to use it in salads, rather than
for frying.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_oil#Comparison_to_other_v...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp_oil#Comparison_to_other_vegetable_oils)

------
eddieone
The hemp flowers are good, cbd is interesting. We did a small experiment using
hemp as replacement for tobacco. There is very little psychoactive components.
The difference is that it smokes like a dream. When the user runs out though,
tobacco cravings come back full swing. It could become a good harm reduction
technique for tobacco/vaping users. Still the production is just starting in
my state, so it's rare and expensive.

~~~
mkl
Breathing a different kind of smoke and hoping it will reduce harm seems a bit
bizarre. Smoke particles are dangerous whatever you burned to get them, right?

I guess it wouldn't have the addictive qualities of nicotine, but addiction
means people wouldn't switch away in the first place.

~~~
slfnflctd
There is at least some preliminary evidence that smoke from the cannabis/hemp
flower is less toxic than commercial tobacco smoke (much of which may be due
to the fact that people usually smoke far less mass of the former)-- heavy
marijuana users do not seem to have the same sort of cancer risk spike as
heavy cigarette smokers.

------
oblib
There was still wild hemp growing from when farmers grew in So Wisconsin & No
Illinois when I was growing up there in the `60 & `70s. My grandfather used to
point it out as we drove on the rural farm roads.

Nobody really paid any attention to it until guys started coming home from
Vietnam and they'd point it out.

When I was around 11-12 some friends and I got our hands on a paper grocery
sack full of plants someone had found. No buds on them, just leaves and
stalks. We probably smoked about half of it up before someone older told us it
was "hemp" and wouldn't get us buzzed. It was about a week after that most
everyone I knew had heard about us. Kids were getting "grounded" all over town
just for knowing us.

Soon after the local Ag Dept guys started campaigns to eradicate it and did a
pretty good job of it. Probably sprayed tons of pesticides along miles and
miles of those old farm roads to do it.

~~~
andai
Trading microscopic amounts of chemicals that feel good with massive amount of
chemicals that give you cancer.

------
curuinor
Isn't there lots of... crossover knowledge between hemp and the psychoactive
cultivars?

~~~
edoceo
Hemp is big ag, cannabis is smaller scale horticulture. You treat your trees
way different

~~~
paradoxparalax
There have been pretty strong Cannabis planted in big scale farms for many
decades in South America. There are those not so strong too, but there are
tons of good stuff in big operations. Paraguay, for example, have skilled big
plantation farmers.

------
brodouevencode
Interesting that KY and NC seemed to have had more success investigating hemp
than the much more progressive VT.

~~~
cronix
KY was one of the major producers early on. Deep history there.

> Historically, hemp production had made up a significant portion of
> antebellum Kentucky's economy. Before the American Civil War, many slaves
> worked on plantations producing hemp.

> Hemp was used extensively by the United States during World War II to make
> uniforms, canvas, and rope. Much of the hemp used was cultivated in Kentucky
> and the Midwest.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#United_States_2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#United_States_2)

~~~
SEJeff
Additionally, one of the big cash crops of KY has been Tobacco, at least until
the Fed started heavily subsidizing corn and penalizing farmers who grow too
much tobacco.

Tobacco looks very similar to marijuana and many farmers would have small bits
of marijuana dispersed amongst several hundred acres of Tobacco.

Source: born and raised in KY. Left to join the US Army and then work in LA
and Chicago as a software engineer.

~~~
chris123
Does not look similar other than they are both plants with green leaves.

~~~
paradoxparalax
that was my same thought too, if you ever saw a tobacco leaf and a Marijuana
leaf. Even the green shade is pretty different. Now, the Castor Oil Plant[1],
which is planted for it's oil, can be confused with marijuana from distance to
the untrained eye.

1-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricinus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricinus)

