by HempingtonPost | Jun 7, 2019
Industrial hemp is paramount to anyone supporting radical environmentally-tied economic measures like the Green New Deal in America to overhaul our energy sector. In fact, hemp can do most of the greening work in terms of both addressing climate change realities and economic inequality. No, not female hemp which is being used for CBD flower extracts, but male hemp.
Note: originally published on www.DarbyHemp.com.
‘This is one the most important things everyone needs to about Hemp!’ Invest your time in reading and sharing this…’ Darlene Mea
Introduction
Unlike the Green New Deal, recent developments with industrial hemp don’t get the PR despite the American hemp farming industry being capable of bringing us to a 100% clean, renewable energy sector by 2030…and we don’t need much government stimulus to pull this off…
Just let farmers farm hemp.
If anything, the government should be incentivizing and helping farmers plants millions of acres (like they did during the war in 1942, although at a much smaller scale for those days — 400’ish thousand acres). I know that’s what the 2018 Farm Bill was about, but should something similar to the Green New Deal be adopted, how much is going to hemp farmers, processors, and hemp biolfuel companies?
Let’s talk hemp biofuel.
While sifting through currently available info on hemp biofuel at the beginning of 2019, you continuously run into a collective ‘if only’ statement in pre-2018 Farm Bill articles:
“Industrial hemp is perfectly capable of fueling the modern world without displacing food or adding to the greenhouse effect, if only it were embraced…”
Pertaining to America, where tons of the world’s most ardent hempsters reside,
“We could easily fuel America with completely green carbon-neutral plant energy if only we had a domestic supply of hemp and it were federally legal to farm…”
The fact America could fuel herself through plants was demonstrated decades ago, hemp being the wisest of choices for a wide variety of economic, agronomic, and ecological reasons. After passage of the 2018 Farm Bill and the reclassification of industrial hemp as an agricultural crop, this if-only statement’s no longer relevant with respect to prohibition. Not only is the industrial hemp plant legal to farm on U.S. soil (now defined as a Cannabis Sativa L. plant with equal or less than 0.3% THC), but the plant’s natural compounds are also federally legal as well — which includes up to 0.3% THC with no restrictions on other naturally-occurring elements like CBD, CBN, CBG, terpenes, etc.
If you’re wondering why the recent law’s so wide open, well, the USDA said one of their goals with the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 in regards to hemp was to give states as much room as possible to come up with their own sets of regulations regarding the crop and its compounds.
So… now what?
Going back to Henry Ford’s original Model T partly made of and and run on hemp, not to mention the original diesel engine being designed for biofuel, a mind-blowing fact remains:
“Dried biomass has a heating value of 5000–8000 Btu/lb. with virtually no ash or sulfur produced during combustion. About 6% [to now 10%] of contiguous United States land area put into cultivation for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas. And this production would not add any net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.” [1]
Do you know how tempted I am to go off on how hemp fiber could turn the fashion industry completely green? Ugh…and today I was shown an article freaking out about the fact the fashion industry (apparel & footwear) accounts for closing in on 10% of human-caused global climate impacts…
Here’s a quote from an April 2019 CBS News article, “Fashion industry’s carbon impact bigger than airline industry’s”,
“Total greenhouse gas emissions related to textiles production are equal to 1.2 billion tons annually — more than those of all international flights and maritime shipping trips combined, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.”
But let’s get back to the biofuel angle which would inevitably mesh with the fashion industry in countless ways.
A biofuel-based infrastructure would create a completely decentralize power grid and no more ultra-mega power companies. Each county and state could provide its own energy using easily renewable plants. Let that seed sink into the garden of your mind…
Example: In Colorado a company called Vega Biofuels offer bio-coal — which is renewable, comparable in price to conventional coal and produced using terrefaction technology — and biochar which can sequester carbon in the soil for hundreds to thousands of years without the negative impacts. Imagine this happening on a wider scale across 5, 10, or 20 states.
Yep, biofuel’s a reality and hemp’s the ticket, backed by scientific research from multiple countries who’ve experimented with a variety of biofuels alongside hemp like Canada, Nigeria [2], across Northern Europe [3], Latvia [4], and so on.
According to some, industrial hemp biofuel performs second only to algae.
- While it can vary depending on cultivar used and where it’s growing, male hemp-cannabis yields an average of nine dry tons per acre. [5]
- This means if allowed to flourish, hemp would quickly reach a point where it’s producing greater biomass tonnage per acre annually in more regions of America than either pulpwood or kenaf.
- Hemp is 80% cellulose: both a low-moisture herbaceous and woody plant.
- Industrial hemp, in comparison to corn’s 34% energy gain because of its high cellulose content, has an estimated 540% energy gain! [6]
- According to our very own USDA (who the 2018 Farm Bill designates as the overseer of the U.S. Hemp industry along with the U.S. Attorney General), one acre planted in hemp produces as much pulp as 4.1 acres of trees. But you can harvest hemp at least 3 times a year…
That last one comes from a 1916 report where they predicted by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and no more trees would need be cut down. But here we go again, none of this is novel information (except to a good percentage of the younger generations supporting Green New Deal-style initiatives)…it’s included in every ‘Hemp 101’ handbook.
Colorado’s also been producing hemp paper for a couple years now. I bought a few pages just to see how it smelled and it smelled like environmental salvation…
Interested? Yeah, hemp paper posters, postcards, envelopes, flyers and much more all made from Colorado-grown male hemp stalk. Check out Tree Free Hemp. Expect to see similar options coming from many different states within a matter of years…hopefully!
The End of Hemp Farming Prohibition in America
Guess what, this means the reinforced double-sided industrial hemp door just opened after being nailed shut for nearly a century. Thankfully, today we have a MASSIVE resources ready to be transitioned into leveraging hemp as a multi-purpose crop where we can create ample (protein and fatty acid-rich) food AND biofuel. All we can hope is ‘the people’ getting behind efforts like the Green New Deal rally and really surf this 21st century agricultural revolution.
Again, the hemp farming industry by itself can accomplish most of what the Green New Deal is setting its sights on by itself if supported and allowed to flourish outside the confines of Big Ag — although we need them on board as well.
How America Will Produce Hemp Biofuel
Hemp biofuel comes from hemp seed oil — the same seed oil you can drizzle on salads, add to a smoothie or feed to livestock — and the rest of the plant can be made into either ethanol or methanol.
North America has absolutely no problem extracting oil from seed we can then use to make biofuel. Furthermore, most of the ethanol added to gasoline we currently put into our cars comes from less efficient and environmentally-friendly food crops like wheat and corn. We can use hemp to efficiently make both — ethanol/methanol and biofuel/biodiesel. University of Connecticut’s research shows hemp seed oil provides a 97% conversion rate into biodiesel [7]. America and Canada both have the infrastructure to switch to industrial hemp-based supply chains within a decade — far less with enough public and corporate involvement.
And well, according to a relatively small survey conducted early April 2019 by Morning Consult (they talked to just shy of 2,000 voters across age, education and political spectrums),
“Voters say 100% renewable electricity by 2030 is more important than other steps to fight climate change.”
For more info-nuggets we can turn to statistics from Health Canada who regulates their industrial hemp industry, showing Canadian hemp farmers planted 138,000 acres in 2017. Most of this Canadian hemp seed is processed into seed oil (as well as hemp seed protein and hearts), which oddly enough was/is sold to Americans where we already have a robust food processing infrastructure.
I hope this is coming across.
What I’m saying here is America and Canada have everything we need already in place in terms of land and plant processing equipment to create a completely human/environmentally-friendly energy system. That’s the truth. Soon, both countries will have more hemp than we’ll know what to do with and all the astounding wonders hempsters have been preaching for decades can manifest. Watch YouTube videos of ordinary people making vegetable oil-based biofuel in their backyard to drive their vehicles right this moment if you want. It’s no secret.
What’ll shock the American populace will be the tremendous amount of industrial hemp seed flowing across the country by the mid-2020s. I love the stuff and try to eat a cup of raw whole hemp seed a day.
“When cold-pressed, 8,000 pounds of hemp seed yields over 300 gallons of hemp seed oil and a byproduct of 6,000 pounds of high protein hemp flour.”[8]
A healthy, irrigated acre of seed-based hemp in Colorado in late 2018, as an example, produced 1,100–2000 pounds of seed. [9]
Let’s not even mention what Kentucky could produce on a larger scale…or Oregon…North Dakota and North Carolina…Montana, and so on. We could EASILY spread out hemp farms to collectively 6–10% of the U.S. and cover our energy needs — completely eradicating the need for fossil fuels. Idealistic sure, but what if by 2025, thanks to hemp America became 50% less dependent on conventional dirty fuels — across allsectors of our country?
When I sit back and begin to fathom the overall impacts of what that would mean worldwide…
Reclamation into Fuel Efforts
One of the core uses of planting industrial hemp across greater America between I’d say 2019–2022 could be for use in farmland reclamation — bioremediation — efforts. This is going to clean up the soil, restoring American farms to their glory with dramatically less heavy metals, petrol-based pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, along with anything else poisoning our land. Another note in every Hemp 101 handbook is how the plant’s been used around toxic waste dumps and even radioactive events like Chernobyl to effectively absorb cadmium from the soil, etc…wow! Obviously none of this reclamation hemp should go to human or livestock consumption…but what to do?
We most definitely shouldn’t just burn or toss it. Let’s transform it into energy!
I’m no chemist, but my bet’s that the plant can successfully be used as energy without causing more of a mess. Hemp’s astounding ability in this respect will finally be able to be heavily studied. Because myself and many others would like to know what happens within the plant to these toxins. Are they still there when the plant’s harvested? Or, does it somehow convert a good percentage to clean energy within itself? Can it be successfully transformed into hemp biofuel? If so, let’s use all that reclamation hemp while cleaning up our toxic soil.
A Note on Pyrolysis
From my own amateur research, it seems like Pyrolysis is going to be the most efficient process for hemp biomass conversion — capable of competing against initially, and then potentially becoming a replacement for fossil fuels.
“Pyrolysis is the thermochemical process that converts organic materials into usable fuels. Pyrolysis produces energy fuels with high fuel-to-feed ratios, making it the most efficient process for biomass conversion…the technique of applying high heat to organic matter (lignocellulosic materials) in the absence of air or in reduced air. The process can produce charcoal, condensable organic liquids (pyrolytic fuel oil), non-condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, and methanol. The process can be adjusted to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol production with a 95.5% fuel-to-feed efficiency” [10]
The people of this world need our Hemp Billionaires and Zillionaires to step up. We need people with capital and the government to get behind and support these types of industrial hemp farming initiatives. We need to fund research and do things by the book. We need farmers to start hemp growing for biofuel along with the ultra-lucrative hemp-derived CBD concentrates/extracts. And textiles!
We need energy companies to start converting from using other less efficient sources of biofuel to hemp. It’s going to be a wild ride…but I’m alive so I have a ticket.
Thanks for your time.
References
[1] Environmental Chemistry, Stanley E. Manahan. Willard Grant Press, 1984.
[2] “Biomass resources and biolfuels potential for the production of transportation fuels in Nigeria” Juliet Ben-Iwo, Vasilije Manovic, PhilipLonghurst, ScienceDirect.
[3] “Biomass and energy yield of industrial hemp grown for biogas and solid fuel” ThomasPrade, Sven-ErikSvensson, et al, ScienceDirect.
[4] “Industrial hemp for biomass production” Rudite Sausserde, Aleksandris Adamovics, ResearchGate, 09/2013.
[5]Lyster H. Dewey, Jason L. Merrill, Hemp Hurds As Papermaking Material, U.S.D.A. Bulletin №404, 1916.
[6]“The Legalization of Industrial Hemp and What It Could Mean for Indiana’s Biofuel Industry”, Nicole M. Keller, Indiana University — Purdue University Indianapolis, pg. 24.
[7] “Hemp Produces Viable Biodiesel, UConn Study Finds” Christine Buckley, UConn Today, 10/06/2010.
[8] “Hemp is the ultimate cash crop, producing more fiber, food and oil than any other plant on the planet” Wm. Conde, Fiber Alternatives PDF.
[9] “Myth-Busting: Hemp Needs More Water than Many Think”, Hemp Industry Daily, May 7, 2018.
[10] “Biomass Resources for Energy and Industry” Lynn and Judy Osburn, 1993.
[7] “Hemp Biodiesel: When the Smoke Clears”, Biodiesel Magazine, Holly Jessen, January 24, 2007.
I’m attempting to write my way into a fabulous career within the American hemp industry, where my heart is.
by HempingtonPost | Jun 3, 2019
Going forward, the future of hemp seems bright. Foor mentions a headline from the 1930s that said, “Hemp: the new billion dollar industry.”
Now, the Oregon Department of Agriculture has recorded 1,342 growers and 46,219 acres of hemp; a large step from 2015 when there were only 13 growers and 105 acres. The Bend Bulletin reported that Oregon ranks third nationally behind Montana and Colorado in industrial hemp acreage, and it also is expected to become the state’s second biggest agricultural commodity.
Before the 2018 Farm Bill, Oregon farmers faced even more barriers to grow hemp due to federal prohibition. Farmers had restricted access to banking, water rights and crop insurance, ODA Communications Director Andrea Cantu-Schomus said. Also, due to its misclassification as a controlled substance before the Farm Bill, ODA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were not tracking hemp’s production or value.
Dean Foor, co-founder of Entangled Biome in Eugene that produces CBD products, said despite hemp being criminalized for around 100 years, humans have had a relationship with the plant for centuries, and the opportunities are re-emerging.
“To say that we’re doing something brand new is accurate on one hand and not on the other,” Foor said. “We’ve known as a society and (individually as) humans that it’s a powerful plant that offers opportunity to us.”
CBD is used as an alternative to other anti-inflammatory medication, and has been shown to help people with anxiety and seizures, according to Harvard Medical School. Foor said he started Entangled Biome with co-founder Jeff Ballard because he wanted to find an alternative anti-inflammatory that was safe for him and also for his dog.
“To know that three years have gone by that I haven’t had to take an anti-inflammatory, and I’ve not only seen my dog but also other pets benefit from it, it’s further testimony,” he said. “We get to be a part of helping people find a better way of living.”
Foor added that the plant is extremely versatile and the potential is diverse. Already, hemp is being seen as an alternative to some medication, construction products, milk and cotton.
“It would be amazing to have hemp fabric grown in the U.S.,” she said, adding that manufacturing it in the region would make the business’ carbon footprint smaller.
There are endless challenges still facing industrial hemp, Seber said, particularly because the industry is “rife with ignorance.” People think that hemp is a different plant than cannabis, even though it’s the same species, and hemp’s association with low THC has “no basis in reality,” he said.
Read the rest of this trory here on The Register Guard
By Aliya Hall For The Register-Guard Posted May 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM
by HempingtonPost | May 30, 2019
At first glance, it looks like a stoner’s paradise: acres of plants that resemble marijuana. But this crop is hemp, a relative of cannabis that has commercial uses ranging from textiles and animal feed to health products. With that being said the question could be answered, YES, hemp could join tobacco as big cash crop in Virginia!
Officials at the Southern Virginia Hemp Co., as well as other farmers and processors of the plant, say hemp could be a big boost to the state’s agricultural sector as demand for tobacco wanes. And it just got much easier to grow hemp in the commonwealth.
Lawmakers have amended the state’s hemp laws to match the rules in the 2018 federal farm bill passed by Congress. Virginia farmers can now grow hemp for producing cannabidiol, or CBD, a naturally occurring chemical that some say has mental and physical health benefits.
CBD products have become popular over the past few years, with some industry analysts predicting the CBD industry will be worth $22 billion by 2022. Until now, only researchers at Virginia universities could grow hemp for making CBD.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has seen a surge in grower and processor applications since Congress passed the farm bill in December. The agency expects the number of applicants to increase even more now that Virginia has amended its hemp laws to match the federal laws.
Wayne Grizzard, owner of Southern Virginia Hemp Company and Virginia Homegrown Botanicals, tends to his hemp plants. Photo by Andrew Gionfriddo, Capital News Service.
“VDACS was not issuing registrations to processor applicants who indicated that their sole goal was to sell a hemp-derived CBD to the public,” said Erin Williams, a spokesperson for the agency. “With the 2019 amendment, I think it will clear up the gray area.”
As of Tuesday, the department had issued 629 grower registrations and 92 processor registrations. So far, Virginia hemp growers are planning to cultivate over 2,000 acres of hemp this year.
In Southside Virginia, where tobacco growers have been hit hard by declining sales and tariffs on their products, farmers are increasingly turning to hemp as a potential cash crop that can be grown in addition to tobacco. Southside Virginia has more registered hemp growers than any other region in the state.
“There’s significant interest in Southside Virginia, particularly among tobacco growers who are looking to add a crop to what they’re doing,” Williams said.
For years, several other states have allowed farmers to grow hemp for the manufacture of CBD products. But Virginia farmers were barred from doing so until lawmakers approved House Bill 1839 in February.
Gov. Ralph Northam signed the bill into law on March 21. Thanks to an emergency clause, it took effect immediately.
The legislation comes on the heels of the 2018 federal farm bill, which established a regulatory framework for the commercial production of hemp. HB 1839 conforms Virginia’s hemp laws to match the provisions of the federal bill.
The Southern Virginia Hemp Co., a farm in the town of Jarratt straddling Greenville and Sussex counties, is expanding its operations to meet the demand for CBD products. The company plans to grow between 75 and 150 acres of hemp this year and aims to hire 40 additional employees to work on the farm this summer.
Wayne Grizzard, owner of the Southern Virginia Hemp Co. and Virginia Homegrown Botanicals, said the new laws could have a positive impact for farmers across the commonwealth, especially for tobacco farmers who have been hit hard by tobacco tariffs levied against the United States by China.
“One of my partner’s farms was for tobacco. He lost all three contracts this year because of the tariffs,” Grizzard said. “Some of the farmers have been forced to grow hemp because they don’t have anything to replace it.”
Since colonial times, Virginia farmers — even George Washington — have planted hemp, using the fiber to make rope and other goods. Historian estimate that by the mid-18th century, Virginia had 12,000 acres cultivated for hemp. Marijuana and hemp were both banned in the 1930s under the Marihuana Tax Act, however. (And yes, that is how the law spelled marijuana.)
Now, Grizzard, once a vegetable farmer, has converted his entire farm to hemp.
“When we first started growing, everybody kind of turned their nose up because it’s cannabis,” Grizzard said. “Once they started realizing that everybody’s getting into it and there’s money involved, they started singing a different tune.”
Until now, Virginia’s hemp industry has failed to keep pace with neighboring Kentucky and North Carolina. Both states have been eyeing hemp as an economic driver for several years.
In 2019, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture approved 1,035 applications to cultivate up to 42,086 acres of industrial hemp, as well as 2.9 million square feet of greenhouse space for hemp cultivation.
North Carolina has 634 licensed farmers growing hemp on about 8,000 acres and 3.4 million square feet of greenhouse space.
Grizzard said the next step for hemp in Virginia is still up in the air. He said the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services must submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture “because the USDA has taken over all states’ hemp programs.”
“As long we’re there to fight, battle and voice our opinions as farmers and business owners, we need to stick together and figure out what we need,” he said.
Grizzard and other farmers are concerned about regulations that could stifle their production and overall business model.
“They could come up with some crazy laws that go against everything we’re doing,” he said. “You never know — there’s always that chance.”
One of the Southern Virginia Hemp Co.’s most popular products is hemp extract oil — cannabidiol. CBD by itself does not cause a “high,” but it has gained popularity as a treatment for a wide range of ailments.
MORE ON THIS STORY HERE
By Daniel Berti and Andrew Gionfriddo/Capital News Service
Capital News Service is a flagship program of VCU’s Robertson School of Media and Culture. Students participating in the program provide state government coverage for Virginia’s community newspapers and other media outlets, under the supervision of Associate Professor Jeff South.
POSTED 5:11 PM, APRIL 30, 2019, BY CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE
