Cannabis sativa L. ssp. sativa var. sativa (far left).
(Note: The terms Cannabis and hemp are used interchangeably throughout the text.)
Hemp is a term used for strains of the flowering, fruit-producing, “super-plant” Cannabis satvia; more specifically Cannabis sativa L. ssp. sativa var. sativa, which has substantially lower tetrahydrocannabinol content and a fairly different physical attributes. Cannabis sativa L. ssp. sativa var. sativa (cannabis) typically has a THC content of 0.3% compared to 2% to over 20% THC content in other strains used to produce drugs (West). The cannabis plant is grown all over the world and harvested primarily for its fiber and seeds (seed meal and oil) which can be used to produce over an estimated twenty-five thousand different products, ranging from medical products to building materials to plastics.
The Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.
Hemp has a long and rich history of agriculture and production in the United States. Hemp was one of the first crops to be grown on the land that would become the United States and was an extremely important cash crop throughout the early years of our country up until World War II. In 1850, there were more than eight-thousand three-hundred twenty-seven hemp plantations of two-thousand acres or more in the Unites States. This figure completely ignores any plantations under two-thousand acres in size producing hemp, so the actual number of hemp producing plantations was most likely much higher. Until 1883, around 75-90% of paper made in the United States was produced from hemp.
Out of all the states, Kentucky has the deepest ties to the hemp industry. According to a state historical plaque, hemp was the first crop to be grown in the state in 1775. From 1840 to 1860, Kentucky produced the most hemp out of any other state in the United States; with production peaking in 1850 at 40,000 tons, which at the time was worth five million dollars, which today would be about one-hundred twenty-nine million four-hundred and two-thousand thirty-four dollars. Hemp was the largest cash crop in the state of Kentucky until 1915, at which point it was replaced by tariff-free jute imports.
麻きものtranslates to "hemp kimono"
In fact, hemp does not only have a rich history in the United States but, in fact, it has a rich history of use all over the world. Hemp has been grown and made into usable goods in Russia, Japan, Portugal, China, France, Chile, and Turkey, as well as countless other countries, for the past twelve-thousand years. Archaeological evidence suggests that hemp has been used as food and clothing in Japan and China as far back as 10,000 BCE during the Neolithic period (Barber) and is even often times depicted on traditional clothing in Japan, such as Kimonos.
Hemp has obviously been an important crop throughout history, not only in Kentucky or in the United States as whole, but throughout the entire world. In this text, I will explore the agricultural and ecological effects and benefits that result directly and indirectly from the farming and processing of cannabis into various products and how these benefits and products can be utilized to help solve some of today’s most pressing ecological issues; as well as Kentucky’s potential role in this industry.
Map showing areas hemp can grow (green).
Hemp can be grown in a wide variety of soils and almost anywhere in the Unites States, with the exception of a small number of areas (Cannabis Sativa L.). The cultivation of hemp does not appear to affect the land, on which it grows, in a negative way in the least. In fact, fields where hemp is used as a cover crop, the crops planted afterwards generally produced larger yields than they generally do when cannabis is not used as a cover crop (Dabney). This is most likely due to hemp’s ability to filter substances, such as heavy metals, nuclear waste, and other toxins, from the soil, water, and air surrounding the area in which the plants are being grown.
This is accomplished through a process known as Phytoremediation. Phytoremediation is the process of using plants to remove problematic substances from an area (soil, water, or air) without needing to remove the problematic substances and dispose of them in a separate location (Henry). Plants, when used in this fashion, are referred to as mop crops.
A visual representation of the process of phytoremediation.
Expectantly cannabis, when used as a mop crop, seems to improve the soil quality of the land on which it is grown. It does this so well in fact, that it is currently being used to clean contaminated (irradiated) soil around the Chernobyl disaster site in the Ukraine (Charkowski).
Unlike other crops widely grown throughout the United States, cannabis does not generally need pesticides or herbicides in order to produce a successful harvest. In fact, few pesticides and absolutely no herbicides are approved for use on the plants, since they are generally, and in the case of herbicides – completely, unnecessary (Baxter).
This characteristic of the cannabis plant can be traced back to its very rapid growth rate
A graph representing the growth of hemp plants over 140 days.
and also how it is planted in fields. Cannabis plants are naturally resistant to the a large variety of diseases caused by pests and are grown in tightly spaced rows which prevent weeds from growing in the same space as the hemp crop by preventing weeds from absorbing sunlight; they also effectively out-compete any other nearby plants for nutrients. They are able to do this because of their extraordinary growth rate. Their very rapid rate of growth allows them to overcome by repairing the damage caused by the pests before any substantial negative effects cause harm to the crop. Pests can be controlled using very simple techniques that are much more environmentally friendly than using harmful substances to control pests and disease. One such method, the most recommended one, is crop rotation. Crop rotation halts the build-up of pests and diseases that could be potentially harmful to the success of a crop (Baxter).
This allows for farmers to grow hemp without using extremely harmful and persistent
A typical hemp crop.
chemicals on the plants. In contrast, widely grown crops such as cotton need a substantial amount of these harmful chemical herbicides and pesticides to produce a successful yield. The use of these chemicals has been proven to be extraordinarily detrimental to not only the surrounding environment but humans and other living organisms that are exposed to them (Human Heath).
We have seen that hemp is not only a convenient, efficient, fast growing crop that does not seem to affect the surrounding environment negatively. But rather the growth of hemp in an area seems to improve the surrounding environment. So how can we use these characteristics, as well as others that will be mentioned, of this plant, to solve or help to solve many of today’s problems?
Hemp is known to produce a very large amount of raw material while exerting a very small negative environmental impact, while at the same time “cleaning” the soil of chemicals 
and other contaminants and thus leaving the soil in better condition that before. This raw material harvested can be used to produce a treasure trove of consumer products. If the United States were to begin to cultivate industrial hemp on a national scale, it could help displace many of the raw materials that we used to produce many of the things that we use every day.
One of the most historically popular uses of hemp was to produce paper. Evidence suggests that hemp has been used to produce paper as far back as two-thousand years ago. In fact, in a 1916 study by the United State Department of Agriculture determined that paper produced for hemp pulp of a distinctly better quality than that of paper produce from wood pulp. While it is true that is more costly to process hemp pulp into paper than processing wood pulp into paper, which is one of the reasons wood pulp is generally preferred of hemp pulp. However, there are many reasons why hemp pulp should be used over wood pulp despite the higher production costs. The first, and arguably most apparent, reason that hemp pulp should be used instead of wood pulp is to reduce the rate of deforestation. Every year, three-hundred million tons of paper are used around the world, of which the United States consumes thirty percent (about ninety million tons), and accounts for twenty-eight percent of the trees cut down, in the United States, every year. If the United States moved from wood to hemp to produce paper, the need for wood in the country would be greatly reduced. Meaning that the process of replacing, part of the seventy percent of natural forest that have been harvested so far, could begin. In the same paper, that concluded paper produced from hemp pulp was of better quality than paper produced from wood pulp, it was also shown that hemp can produce much more usable material than trees can. This is due to the fact that trees are comprised of a significantly lower amount of cellulose than hemp plants (thirty and seventy percent respectively). One acre of hemp plants can produce up to as much as four to ten acres of tree over a twenty-year cycle. And not only that but hemp only takes about four months to be ready for harvest compared to the twenty to eighty years a tree requires to mature enough to be harvested (Henry). As an added benefit, the processing of hemp pulp can actually be achieved using very little amounts of toxic chemicals used in the processing of wood pulp to none at all.
The hemp produced as a result of widespread cultivation, in the United States could also serve to replace many oil-based products in use today, including gasoline. It is no secret that the world’s supply of oil is ever dwindling and supply is ever growing. Simply put, oil is not a sustainable resource and at the current growth in rate of consumption, the current supply will not last for forever. In today’s world we use many oil-based products. Some examples would include: fuels, plastics, cellophane, Styrofoam and countless others. Crude oil, or more commonly, petroleum, is a liquid found in geological formations beneath the surface of the Earth. Petroleum is made up of a very complex hydrocarbon structure as well as a large number of various other organic compounds. Petroleum is generally recovered from the Earth through a process known as oil drilling, whereby large machines drill into the earth and into an underground well of oil (an oil pool). The oil is then pumped out of the ground and transported to places where it can be processed for use. While petroleum is an amazing chemical substance with thousands of uses, it is also a very dangerous substance and is extremely toxic to the environment and organisms living therein, despite being an organic substance.
One thing that petroleum extraction and tree harvesting have in common is that they both are responsible for extremely large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released in to the atmosphere every year. And in the case of petroleum, not only does the process of
A ball-and-stick model of a molecule of carbon dioxide.
extraction cause the release of carbon dioxide but the fuel products produced from petroleum are a major contributor to the release of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. For every gallon of gasoline burned, which weighs about 6.3 pounds – 5.5 pounds being carbon, around twenty pounds of CO2 is released (Properties of Fuels). The amount of carbon dioxide released as a result of petroleum use, refinement, and extraction, as of 2008, totaled to two-billion four-hundred thirty-six thousand metric tons (EIA).
Another major benefit of the growth of hemp is that fact that it is carbon neutral (Science). What this means is that the hemp plants absorb more CO2from the environment than is produced during the harvesting of it. The same cannot be said of trees or petroleum. In fact, biodiesels made from or with hemp (hemp ethanol fuels) can potentially release up to
A diagram of the Pyrolytic Reactor.
forty-four percent less carbon dioxide when burned. As technology to produce biodiesels improves, this figure will only increase. Hemp ethanol fuels are also substantially less toxic and in fact considered nontoxic, therefore it is also safer for the environment. In experiments, hemp ethanol has proven to be even less toxic than table salt (sodium chloride) by a figure of ten (Sanford). Along with being nontoxic, hemp ethanol is biodegradable. Within twenty-eight days, hemp ethanol will degrade eighty-five to eighty-eight percent which is comparable to dextrose, a common sugar (Sanford).
So what does all of this mean? What does any of this have to do with Kentucky? Why should you even care?
Growing hemp is an important first step into becoming a more environmentally conservative and sustainable society. The potential ecological benefits are simply too great to overlook and the potential ecological detriments are also far too great to overlook.
In order for human society to be sustainable heading into the future, we need to become aware of how much of Earth’s un-renewable resources are consumed every year and how fast the supplies of them are dwindling.
Even though trees are not technically an un-renewable resource, they do take a substantially long time to regrow after being harvested. In fact, it can take over one-hundred years in order to regrow a forest that has been removed and collected to be processed into usable products such as wood and paper. The process of turning trees into wood pulp that can then be processed into paper products is very un-environmentally friendly.
Hemp farm in Lexington, Kentucky
Hemp can also be used to help offset the need for “dirty” fuels such as gasoline. Hemp can be processed into a biodiesel fuel that is both powerful and much more environmentally friendly. When used in conjunction with other alternative energy sources such as hydrogen, solar, nuclear, wind, etc. we can, as a society begin to move away from simply unrealistic energy options that dominate the current market.
The United States, and in particular Kentucky, is a perfect place for this resurgence of the hemp industry to take hold. Kentucky has had a very successful history with hemp farming and there is a reason for that. It is a incredibly easy crop to maintain, that matures quickly and has thousands of uses, but overall Kentucky is a perfect environment for hemp. With all of the recent local activism for the return of hemp from both farmers and citizens alike, there is a prime interest in the crop and the industry would be able to regain prominence.
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