Hemp. What is it good for?

The CBD hemp oil use has taken off since the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. Before we discovered it’s amazing health benefits, hemp was used for many products. Let’s dig into hemp history, its role in the economy and find out about its many uses.

Hemp is a very old and versatile crop. Hemp use and cultivation goes back thousands of years. Fabric remnants dating back 8000 years were found to contain hemp fibers. Hemp was widely grown in U.S. colonial times for cloth, paper, and rope. The original version of the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper. During WWII the Federal government formed the War Hemp Industries Department and subsidized hemp cultivation, which promoted the growth of nearly 1 million acres of hemp.

What happened to the noble hemp plant? Why aren’t we attired in hemp jeans, add hemp milk to our cereal, or write on hemp paper? Well, hemp somehow got confused with another cannabis variety, marijuana. In 1970 the Controlled Substances Act classified all cannabis plants (marijuana and hemp) as Schedule I drugs, the same category as heroine, thus making all cannabis illegal and shutting down the hemp industry.

Hemp and marijuana are different varieties of the cannabis plant. Each are bred to maximize different plant qualities. Marijuana is cultivated to produce high levels of THC. Hemp plant varieties differ depending on the intended plant use either as fiber, seed, or flower. Now that hemp is legal once more, hemp products are showing up on grocery shelves. You can find hemp seed in nutrition bars, ground into protein powder, or hemp milk, and hemp cooking oil. In fact, the hemp plant has hundreds of uses from paper, cloth, high-protein hemp seed, cooking oil, building materials, insulation, plastics, biodegradable packaging, biofuel, feed stock, animal bedding, body care products, and as a therapeutic medicine. Expect new products as people innovate with this versatile plant.

Hemp is a hardy, easy to grow plant that uses little water and requires no pesticides. It grows wild across much of the Central US and is often referred to as ditch weed. This wild hemp is a vestige of industrial hemp cultivation during WWII. One acre of hemp can produce as much fiber as 2-3 acres of cotton or as much paper as 4 acres of trees. Hemp is useful in soil remediation due to its long roots, short growth cycle and high biomass.

Rural farm economies can benefit from hemp’s high crop yields and high profit margin compared to wheat, soy and corn, as well as downstream industries. As a rotation crop, hemp replenishes nutrients and retains soil moisture, thus preventing soil loss and improving soil health. Industrial hemp cultivation has the potential to revitalize rural economies and promote farming to a younger generation.

So let’s give a cheer for hemp and welcome it back into our economy.