With people often confusing hemp for weed, it’s no doubt that hemp farming has often been considered taboo.
But hemp is really a very different plant. Hemp farming has been happening around the globe for around 8000 years. And there most certainly is nothing sinister about that.
Producing one of the world’s most sustainable and versatile crops, hemp has been getting a bad rap for a very long time.
Hemp has a THC level of around 0.2-0.3%, unlike marijuana which is 20%+. THC is the element in weed that provides users the high that so many crave.
It is what makes people a danger behind the wheel of a motorcar, and it is what increases the sales of salty snacks at a 7-eleven near you.
Hemp, on the other hand, produces superfoods, clothing, rope, wood, paper, and that is to name just a few things! Hemp farmers around the world are helping to ensure this wonderful resource is readily available.
What is hemp farming?
Hemp farming is the process of growing, cultivating and harvesting commercial quantities of hemp. Manufacturers use this product in a wide range of industrial, consumer, and medicinal applications.
Currently in the USA, only six states—Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, New Jersey, and Oklahoma—enacted legislation in 2018 establishing hemp research and industrial hemp pilot programs[1].
This is sad, as it is such a wonderful plant and its applications are boundless. It is often a naive approach to legislation that put all forms of the cannabis plant on the blacklist.
What do hemp farmers do?
Hemp farming is done sustainably and ethically.
With the seeds being planted and ready for harvesting only 90-120 days later, using very little water, it’s remarkable.
Like any other farmer, hemp farmers grow hemp for cultivation to create hemp products.
Once farmers harvest the plants, they extract out a wide range of materials. People use everything including the seeds, the flowers or buds, the stems, the hurd and the stringy fibers inside the stem.
Hemp farming makes a wide range of products available that are on the market today.
What are the benefits?
Hemp is a very tough and durable plant. That means farmers can grow them in conditions that are often not favorable to other types of crops.
Hemp also provides us a lot more material per acre than comparable crops. Compared to lumber, hemp gives us four times the amount of useable fibers. That’s amazing.
And compared to cotton, it gives us three times more fiber. Also, it doesn’t need pesticides to grow. Cotton, on the other hand, uses 16% of the world’s pesticides. And it sure drinks a lot more water than hemp does.
These eco-friendly plants can grow very close together. And they grow tall. Furthermore, farmers can harvest them multiple times per year. That makes hemp a great crop for farming.
Also, hemp is a carbon-negative crop. That means it takes out carbon from the atmosphere. It has no carbon footprint. And it gets better.
If you add enough hemp to a product, it can even bring the product’s whole carbon footprint to zero. In fact, a company did this with a car.
The company built only the body of the car from hemp. But when they combined that with the rest of the car, the whole car’s environmental impact was zero. The ultra-sustainable crop balanced out the rest of the materials.
Sustainable methodologies of farming are applied for hemp.
Little water is used in comparison to viable alternatives for the hemp plant- such as oak or cotton.
Hemp farmers are professionals in the area of hemp and are passionate about nature and the sustainability of this versatile product.
Why do we need hemp farming?
We need hemp farming in our community as we need sustainability. We need choice and most importantly we need to be more environmentally friendly if we want to survive.
Products such as food that is rich in vitamin, portent, minerals and essential fatty acids. Products that are stronger and more durable than the alternative and can be harvested within three months.
No matter if you know a hemp farmer or if you want to be one, the hemp farming world wouldn’t go around without these wonderful and talented individuals.
To learn more, you can check out information from the USDA and Farmers.gov.