Article by Helga Ahmad in support of hemp for Pakistan

An article in yesterday's Express Tribune asks about hemp for Asia - where cotton farming is killing the population of farmers. There has been much hemp cultivated in India and China - China cultivates most of the hemp fibre today - and there is interest (see previous posts on this blog) about hemp for India but the government does not yet back it. Hopefully this piece will be read at all levels and hemp will be available to replace cotton, corn and tobacco. There may be nefarious groups that try to influence these governments to keep the people in poverty and dying from the pesticides that major companies sell for cotton, corn and tobacco farming - hemp is illegal to cultivate in the US - where there is an effort under way to make it legal again - www.minawear.com/about-us/ -

By Helga Ahmad

Published: January 23, 2013

The writer is an environmentalist and has worked for the ministry of environment for 15 years

Intermittently, the media exposes the public to the dangers of the looming food crisis we face. One is also made aware of the water crisis and its role in quickening the impending food shortage. What is never mentioned is that our soil is dying and its limited carrying capacity has resulted in massive additions of chemical fertilisers, which, without a balanced organic base in the soil, does not result in healthy growth of crops. The soil, therefore, needs to be protected through intensive spraying of pesticides.
More than a decade ago, a group of Dutch scientists, undertook a study in Sialkot, from where fresh vegetables are supplied to the vegetable markets of Lahore and Islamabad. A full growing cycle of the vegetables was observed, along with water sources, soil and periodic testing of the growing vegetables. The results of the tests confirmed that the vegetables were not meant for human consumption.
Around the same time, one came to know of young girls, not yet in their teens, who were being treated for cancer. These girls were from the tobacco-growing areas and their duty during the harvesting season was to string the leaves for the drying chambers. Today, tobacco requires up to 16 sprays. An effort to establish an extensive programme to raise natural predators for pests failed as the pesticide lobby was too strong. A similar scenario is prevailing in the cotton-growing belt with cotton-pickers exposed to the remnants of the extensive spraying on the crops.
Cotton requires a staggering 125 million kilogrammes of pesticides annually in the US alone. Pesticides are possibly the greatest toxic threat to our soil, air, water and natural communities because they often leave permanent after-effects and their toxicity increases as they are consumed up the food chain. Many pesticides are known carcinogens and can also cause immune-deficiency disorders.
Cottonseed cake, a major animal feed, is also a carrier of pesticides, besides freshly grown fodder. And so, starting from the tip of our mountain ranges, where cottonseed cake is feeding stall-fed animals, pesticides are seeping into our soil throughout the country. Perhaps, we need to look towards the West where efforts are underway to find alternative solutions to these hazards. The focus in the West and in China is on the benefits of cultivating hemp (cannabis sativa). The vast potential of this plant was acknowledged during the last decade after Beijing’s Hemp Research Centre was established. Advanced technologies in reducing the lignin content in hemp were developed, which turned it into an easily workable fibre for highly sophisticated textiles. Twenty-thousand hectares of hemp have already been planted in China with the added benefit providing income for millions of small-scale farmers as large areas of cotton-growing land is freed for food production, besides reducing the input of chemical fertilisers and pesticides on cotton crops.
The present shortage of wood fibre at the global level has also contributed considerably to ignite interest in hemp. Plant breeders have developed hemp varieties with increased fibre content. And so, the world is moving on, while it seems that we are meant to stagnate. Or, is there a spark igniting?

Abhay Deol of India talks about hemp in the US

An article from india.nydailynews.com by Abhay Deol of India struck me as pertinent, especially as we are in the midst of getting this petition signed to go to the White House - www.minawear.com/about-us/ -  to make hemp legal in the US. Not sure its status in India, I think it is legal, but is certainly not grown in any abundance there - though it used to be very much. 



Abhay Deol at PVR Nest screening. (Photo: IANS)

New Delhi, May 24 -- Conspiracy theorists will have you know that the "war" on drugs is just a way to keep drugs in the black market so that their value remains "high". Comparing cannabis (marijuana/hemp) with hard drugs like cocaine, crack, heroin etc is a way to demonise the drug further.

The downfall of the plant started early last century in the US. Ironically, it was illegal NOT to grow hemp in a few states in the early part of US history. Even George Washington grew it. Its uses were many - as fiber for ropes and sails, to make paper, its seeds are high in proteins, it makes for a stronger, longer lasting material to make clothes with, than cotton. It was possibly the first agricultural crop. It can be grown in most climates, is drought resistant, requires little fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides. Its seeds can be used to make hemp oil.

A little known fact is that it can also be used to produce fuel! Henry Ford's first Model-T (the people's car) was even constructed from hemp! He said it was "grown from the soil" and its impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel! Hemp fuel is also biodegradable, does not contribute sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere and is non-toxic. Farmers around the world would greatly benefit from growing it. But alas, we live in a market driven economy and I personally have come to believe that the market is driven by scarcity.

If upon further research it is proved that hemp can provide us with so many alternatives, it would drive many companies out of business. Think about it, it can replace trees for paper, that would not be good for companies who make profit from cutting down trees. Being a weed, it grows really fast and outcompetes other weeds. Hemp strains produce their own resins that make the crop naturally pest free. Not good for companies that make pesticides! It can be used as a fuel! This is one of the major threats! Oil companies are some of the biggest giants in the corporate world. Both Henry Ford and Rudolf Diesel designed cars that ran on vegetable oils and hemp oil. This was a century ago!

Ford even said that the fuel of the future is going to come from weeds and fruits, anything that can be fermented to produce ethanol/ethyl alcohol. But as gasoline emerged as the dominant transportation fuel in the early part of the last century, as more and more oil fields were discovered, there was intense lobbying by the petroleum companies to maintain steep taxes on alcohol thereby killing the market for alternative fuels.

The rabbit hole goes deeper. The case for hemp as mankind's (and the Earth's) saviour cannot be made by me in a 300 word article (which I have far exceeded). Before the western influence started to dictate our laws, we were happy to spark up, drink, and even eat the damn drug with no one having any objection. Our festival of Holi is proof of that. Today it is illegal. So how is it that bhang is sold at government outlets during Holi? Why is it that sadhus who smoke chillums are not arrested? When and why did we bring a law to ban it? Was it to benefit us, or the US?

HEMP GROWS HIGH IN THE HIGHLANDS

How high does hemp grow, is a question I am often asked. One answer to this is: up to 30'. Which of course is the exception, rather than the rule, as most of it grows nowadays 8-10'. The other answer is 7,000' or more, that is in altitude. This is covered on pp. 6-8 of Hemp for Victory, where 19th century authors J. Forbes Royle and Major Heber Drury noted its growth in India and Nepal. The former wrote:

The plant I have seen in a very luxuriant state at least ten or twelve feet high, in the Himalayas, at elevations of 6000 and 7000 feet, especially in the neighbourhood of buffalo sheds.

The latter, quoting an 1840 account of Capt. H. Huddlestone, adds:

The real Hemp, or cultivated kind, is chiefly grown on high lands, and principally on the northern faces of the mountains, in well prepared and abundantly manured soils close to villages, or in recently cleared lands by burning the primeval forests, the soil of which, from the accumulated decomposed vegetable matter of several years, is rich enough to ensure the superior growth of the plant and an abundant crop without any manure for one season. No irrigation is ever resorted to, and very little is produced under an elevation of 3000 feet, the heat of the valley being detrimental to its quality, and the plant appears to flourish best at elevations of from between 4000 to 7000 feet.

Drury notes of its growth in Katmandoo, and further quotes an anonymous source as to its growth in mountainous regions:

All along the Himalayas - that is in Nepaul, in Kemaon, in Gurwhal, and up to the newly acquired hills of the Punjab, at elevations of from 3,000 to 4,000 to 7,000 feet - Hemp is cultivated by the Hillmen, though chiefly for their own use, at some say, the plants growing to 8 to 10, or some say, 12 or 14 feet.

India continued to produce hemp into the 20th century, with 11,000 tons produced in 1904 and 36,000 tons in 1919. A german agriculural tract from 1916 shows hemp growing 20' tall in Nepal.

Chinese practice for small landowners in Southwest China has been to use the level land for crops such as rice, and the sloping land, that is not as conducive to rice, for hemp. With hemp's affinities for growth at high altitudes, of a mile or more, and its ability to grow on sloping terrain, it is ideal for mountainous countries, such as Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. It could well provide a new fibre, and reduce the dependency of these countries on imported fibres such as jute and cotton, both of which use much water. In addition, the nutritious seeds could provide a valuable export, the by-product of which, the cake, could be used to feed cattle and fish. The inner fibre, not useful for fabric, could be used for paper, most of which is imported into these countries from Southeast Asia, where its production threatens the rain forests.

Presently some hemp is still grown in the Himalayas, but new laws in Nepal make it technically illegal, save for wild grown hemp, which villagers still harvest to make textiles and press for seeds (see related posts on this blog).

Hopefully it will continue to be grown in the 'Indies' and find a new home in the Andies....

20 YEARS A' GROWING:
THE RETURN OF DR SHIVA

Last month Dr Vandana Shiva made another appearance in London, returning to Hampstead Town Hall to speak. Sagar Shah and I came along again, running into Carolyn Whittle of PositiveTV and environmental reporter Stanley Johnson, whose resemblance to his son Boris was hard to miss. A perhaps not irrelevant factoid in this is the fact that Boris is one quarter Indian, and so the family may have some interest in that part of the world. Boris, unlike some politicians, does not wear his own ethnic diversity on his sleeve.
The event was a celebration of Dr Shiva's 20 years with Zed Books, a left wing publishing house here in London. She was introduced by Patrick Holden of the Soil Association; this time we had a more amicable chat with him backstage, or rather, in front of the food table which is where most people gathered before the event; having a good caterer is always a plus, and the same people who were there with such an impressive array were on hand again. Speaking of food, Sagar and I gave a blueberry hempseed chocolate bar to Vandana, so she had some in hand to take back (if that is still permissible with our new aeroport security laws). It was one of the footlong monster bars that Roger Snow sent me from Rocky Mountain Grain Products in Canada, so it may well be touring the world; the hemp bar that went from Ontario to New York to London may well be on its way to New Delhi. Which could, of course, be seized upon by the airmiles pharisees who want to stop all airlifting of food - including some of the folks at the Soil Association. As this would only devastate the local economies of about 50 nations, eight charity groups banded together to tell the elitists that this just would not work; and good job they did. How many times in this world do overzealous do-gooders destroy things before we call an end to this? What would this do, for instance, to the mango/papaya/jute growers in India? Or are we supposed to grow these items somewhere in the UK? Even by the most outrageous global warming prediction we are simply not going to be able to do that, so we might as well not disrupt the livelihoods of millions of people for the likes of Tamsin Omond (whose antics at closing down aeroports might have kept Dr Shiva out of the country).
Conspicuously absent from the event were the biofuel opponents preaching global warming/cooling/climate change. As so many scientists are now eschewing this rubbish (see Marc Morano in the current issue of Nexus), they are no longer flavour of the month, and people are wondering why governments are giving away hard earned cash to idiots trading carbon credits as if it was a new dot.com stock. Dr Shiva touched on this in her speech, calling such trading tantamount to the indulgences the church was trading in the Middle Ages. She also touched on the options trading, which she called a "construct of a construct of a construct", and asserted really only came about in the '70s. It is now into the hundreds of billions of pounds she noted, and is part of the reason for the credit crunch. If there were any bankers at the meeting, this is when they slithered out the door. They may not have been feeling to comfortable, but a wider segment of the audience might also have felt slighted as she talked about cars; she herself does not own a car, and good on her! In India, she says, the percentage of car owners has not grown since the '50; cars are everywhere, due to both population increase and the fact that the same people who owned a car in the '50s now own five. One wonders if they are going to start using electric cars - ironically India is where the G Wiz, which is now so prominent in Hampstead and other parts of London, is produced.
In her time Dr Shiva has seen much change, but sadly, much of this is for the worse. We hope that she will be able to see some soon for the better, and with hemp in hand on her way back to India, this may well be the case. Thank you Dr. Shiva for your inspiration, we hope to see you again soon.

TAMIL WEAVER NEEDS OUR SUPPORT

Bobby Pugh of The Hemp Shop emailed me a story about an award winning Indian weaver who is in trouble. Despite his being in the Guinness Book of Records for using the most number of natural fibres in a single woven yarn, the crippling economic times have gotten to him too, and he is under threat of eviction. His creations have included hemp, jute, viscose, banana, bamboo, pineapple, mesta, waterweeds, hessian, sisal and linen. Glad to see cotton is not on that list!

C Sekhar is his name. He is President of the Anakaputhur Jute Weavers' Association. Times are hard in his profession, recently six suicides have created a mood of despair. We can help him out! But as usual, lots of talk and no action - as he notes: "I have met big names, but could never benefit from their promises, which remain unfulfilled."

Next year is the Year of Natural Fibres. In anticipation of it, let's extend our hand to this man and get him back in the chips. It is people like him with experience we need to support, not idle dopers and trendy eco-wanna-bes who make lots of money exploiting cotton.

VANDANA SHIVA VISITS THE UK

Hampstead Town Hall was our destination Monday evening, as we had a very special guest, author and activist Vandana Shiva, India's leading environmentalist. Sagar Shah brought our attention to this event, and it was well worth the price of admission. The Gaia Foundation and the Soil Association were largely behind it, and they certainly picked a top notch speaker. I might note that there was also a very good spread of food, not only organic delicacies, but real food, which means it tasted good. Baby beets with soured cream, falafel wraps, Welsh Brie, and, to my surprise, a tofu canape which rose above the usual bland tofu disasters using trendiness as an excuse for blandness. However, no hemp was on the table, but there was plenty of hemp hearts and oil at home to feast on later.

The real meat of the event was, however, hearing Vandana. She hails from Dehra Dun, a city in the north, where she runs a farm. Sagar Shah had visited last year and poked around making notes for future hemp coops in India. At present, there is very little hemp grown there, though hemp was once grown extensively, especially in the north.

Instead of hemp, there are millions of acres of cotton, which Vandana notes is a major threat to people's lives. In one area in Orissa state, there is a farmer committing suicide every eight hours. The suicide rate stands in the tens of thousands (related posts on this blog can go into more detail). Not only does the cotton use tons of pesticides, but is depleting India's water. This is starting to be noticed by the more observant journalists, such as Louisa Pearson of Scotland on Sunday (previous post has link to her article), but so many trendy do-gooders in the green movement just ignore this inconvenient fact as they shop for 'organic' cotton, which actually uses more of India's precious resource, water. Vandana posits that we may be in big trouble in the near future over the diminishing water resources.

Not only is there too much cotton, but there is in her opinion too much of another plant, jatropha. Ealier this month we blogged about how D1 Oils is in a bitter controversy about jatropha, and we left it open as to whether this crop was bad or not. Vandana did not leave anything open to doubt, she cut down the jatropha as a reaper swings a scythe. Jatropha was rammed down the throats of Indian farmers who were forced by government officials to grow this plant for its oily seed to be used for biodiesel. Up to 11m ha of it were planted all over India, at times replacing rice fields and grazing land, especially in the desert state of Rajasthan, where only 11% of the land is arable (as opposed to the national average of 56%). Another aspect of jatropha cultivation is the fact that it is poisonous to man and beast; ironically, the jatropha fans put up hoarding exhorting farmers to grow lots of it: "No one can eat me, wouldn't you like to grow me everywhere?"

Apparently, no one wants to grow anymore of this unfriendly plant, even the farmers who were supposed to receive a subsidy of 18 rupees per plant; which they never did get in full, and are now regretting pulling out other plants to make way for this little crop of horrors.

One wonders why they did not plant hemp? There were lots of wanna-be environmentalists beating the drum for the poisonous little fiend, but none would mention hemp; the truth is that a few years ago jatropha was trendy and there was money behind it. So those of us talking sense were drowned out, and India lost out.

Other ways in which India loses out in include the influence of companies pushing GM crops, including Bt cotton. Vandana explained that this was pushed through use of statistics showing that after GM crops were introduced, exports increased. This statistic was due to the fact that farmers were too poor to buy local produce after using GM seeds, and so their crops were sold off to foreign lands more than in the past. Again, they could have made money on hemp, but there are too many parties pushing false environmentalism and globalism, with profits going to foreign companies. By the way, there is still an arrest warrant in place for those responsible for Bhopal, including Warren Anderson, who lives in NY.

While there was much agreement with her message, I had some question at the end when I realised there was much talk against various energy forms; nuclear, coal, petrol, diesel and even bio-ethanol were definitely not in style. Vandana runs her farm with four bullocks. That is great, but realistically, can we run the world on that model? Too often enthusiastic environmentalists get on to an idea and try to push it on everyone, tested or not; that is why we have destructive palm oil plantations and jatropha. There is often a debate as to which energy we ought to use, and I think that putting all one's eggs in one basket is wrong; as Vandana pointed out, diversity is a safer approach. With that in mind, while she might not completely agree, I support some amount of bio-ethanol, especially as this can be made from waste material - which brings me to a point on which I disagree with many so-called 'activists'. It is often stated at these meetings, especially by the more zealous and ignorant in the camp, that we ought to return all wastes to the soil and not use cellulose as a raw material for ethanol. If this lot, including Andrew Boswell, would spend time listening rather than bashing biofuels, they would realise that cellulose is only a carbohydrate, and that taking carbon, hydrogen and oxygen away does not deprive the soil of nutrients, but that these are common elements the soil can get lots of. Many of those handing out leaflets at rallies have not studied any of the science, and are well on the way to creating the next overzealous craze, following in the footsteps of the palm oil and jatropha fanatics.

On the subject of diversity, I came across a recent article in Positive News (whose editor, Jane Taylor, was in attendance) which highlighted a solar tower in Spain. Large mirrors reflect the light up to the top of the tower, where temperatures reach 250 centigrade. This heats water, making steam, and energy is produced with no carbon emissions. For India this would be good news! A second article in the same paper talked about tidal turbines supplying almost all the energy for Samso, an island with 4,000 inhabitants off the coast of Denmark. This too could be of use in India, with all its coastline and major rivers.

Also in attendance was Stanley Johnson, who looks just like MP Boris Johnson; due to the fact that Stanley is Boris' dad, no doubt. Stanley had some very positive news for me, as he related the recent Law Lords' decision to throw out the US request for extradition of Ian Norris on all but one count, which has been passed back down to the lower courts, and one would expect common sense to prevail after the senior jurists set a tone. That fact, however, diverges from the main train of thought, but it is certainly good news that deserves passing on. Returning to the subject of this blog, let me note that both Stanley and his look-a-like dad will be getting copies of Hemp for Victory soon, especially as Stanley has a very interesting environmental site, http://www.stanleyjohnson.com/

Vandana was given a copy of Hemp for Victory so perhaps we will indeed be seeing fields of emerald in India soon. Even if she does not support its use as a crop for bio-ethanol, it has so many other uses that it will surely find a place on her bullock-powered farm.

HEMP IN NEPAL

The Journal of Industrial Hemp, Vol 12 #2 (2007) is another goldmine of information - contents are in the previous post. Two of the articles are on Nepal, both by the globetrotting hempologist Robert C. Clarke. His latest adventures took him to Kathmandu and from whence the young man went west, to the westernmost district, Darchula. In that region hemp (nena in the Tamang language) is grown at altitudes of 1,500-3,000m. He asserts that Darchula produces the highest quality hemp textiles.

Of interest is the fact that they are able to harvest the crop for resin, seed and textiles - most Western countries are using a single purpose crop. There is also the use of the hurds as torches, so one could say there are four uses made of the plant.

The textile and cordage obtained from the outer bark is also produced locally, with about 3,000 r0lls a year sold on the Kathmandu; it is estimated that the same amount stays in the region.

Clarke notes that legally this is prohibited, and this I was able to confirm in a conversation with Udaya Thapa, a Ghurka who is very active in the hemp industry in Nepal. Thapa noted, however, that wild hemp could be harvested, and this same law applies in the US - with the stipulation that the leaves be fallen off first. The Lakota Indians have worked within the law there and used feral hemp to produce paper, but have had their harvests of hemp destroyed by the US government. The influence of which is very pernicious, and may well be responsible for the law in Nepal which does not differentiate between industrial hemp and marijuana.

Somewhat unique to Asian hemp culture is the Darchula practice of beating the stalks to loosen the hurd from the bast. After this the stalks are boiled for an hour, cooled, rinsed in flowing water, beaten, dried and beaten again. The practice of today is not much different than that of 1855, as observed by H.B. Hodgson:

After the plants have been cut off at the ground, they must be placed in the sun for 8-10 days, or until they be dried sufficiently. They must then be steeped in water [retted] for three days, and on the fourth day the plants must be taken out of the water and peeled. The peelings are to be washed and placed in the sun; and when quite dried, they are ready for manipulation. They are then to be torn into threads with the nails of the hands; next twisted with a spinning wheel (tikuli), and when the threads are thus prepared, they are to be boiled with ashes of wood and water in a pot, for four hours, and to be washed again for the purpose of whitening. This is the way of preparing bhangela [sic] thread, out of which blankets are woven.

Nepal's neighbours India and China do grow and have grown hemp. Currently China sells the most and perhaps at the cheapest price. As hemp is in more and more demand, and governments realise that they cannot sustain the water intensive cotton industry anymore, they will be happy to have hemp on hand. Just watch out for any maniacs with Agent Orange in US helicopters.

REVIEW OF 2007

Lots happened this year, hemp was on the increase yet again worldwide. Dave Monson in North Dakota ended up suing the US Gov over his right to grow hemp, a fight which made the front page of the New York Times in July. In South Dakota, the Lakota Indians continued their fight to grow hemp and ended up seceeding from the US, a story the mainstream press does not know what to do with. Good luck to them! White man no damn good...except for me!

Talking of no damn good stupid white men, good old Boy George managed to get corn growers to use their crops for ethanol, the entire plants going to ethanol production, which made the press decide ethanol was no damn good. None of them picked up on the fact that you use the edible part of the plant first then use the waste parts for ethanol. Must have missed science in school.

Others who missed science in school flew around the world in jets telling us not to fly around the world in jets and sold us the global warming scare. Then it was found out that these scaremongers were raking in $50m and treating people like dirt. Those who paid attention in science class posed inconvenient facts, which were ignored by the likes of George Monbiot and the Guardian.

So much nonsense from that paper got some people irked, including a 9-year-old who started jessthekid.blogspot.com Like may people, she is tired of pseudo environmentalists, especially the kind who support cotton. Organic cotton is now turning into a disaster, as it takes up more space and more water then cotton grown with pesticides. Here in the West we take water for granted, and pay lots of money to transport bottled water. You can see them gulping it down at the Guardian offices, where they are helping to destroy the rain forests by refusing to switch to hemp based paper. So for 2008, we are on a mission to put the spotlight on all the newspapers we can - and this includes eco papers as well. Stop using wood paper!

And stop wearing cotton - the writing on the wall reads: "Real Environmentalists Wear Hemp!"

And real environmentalists use hemp bags - a point we made this year with the creation of the hemp bag in answer to all these cotton bags, including the Anya Hindmarch bag. The press was on her, with the Evening Standard taking her to task on the front page in April.

I am still eating the hemp hearts and hemp candy bars that Roger Snow so kindly sent me from Rocky Mountain Grain Products in Canada. I shared them with Cynthia Mckinney when she visited London in September. What a trip that was! There was a bunch of oddballs trying to host her, including the David (the Messianic) Shayler! I make no apology for jumping in and getting her a nice place to stay and some good press, including Big Issue. Its founder, John Bird, was someone who encouraged Mina Hegaard of Minawear when she was just starting that business. They loved McKinney, who wore an orange jump suit outside the US Embassy in protest at Guantanamo Bay, but I doubt she wore it on the plane back (or she would be herself in Guantanama Bay); instead, she had hemp - given to her by Gav Lawson of THTC. While she was here she met with Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth and also Baroness Jenny Tonge - her ladyship (who hates being addressed so formally - but I like to stand on ceremony) has been a great supporter of the hemp movement here in the UK and we gave her the 100% organic hemp bag mentioned above. The bag, by the way, is basic, I call it ugly, and I am proud of it as a mother owl her chicks. It takes the mick out of every single bag out there because it is hemp!

Later in the year I met a remarkable woman, Jane Pasquill of House of Hemp and saw some really great multi-colour apparel. She wants to harvest hemp next year in Cornwall, and may yet kickstart the UK hemp milling industry.

By email and phone I met also Remy Chevalier, who is Gurdjieff's grandson. His sister lives here in London, the renowned artist CM Chevalier, whom I have yet to meet. We may just do so at the opening to ECO in Chiswick, where hemp sheets by Jilly Cholmondeley will be on sale. Expect it to open in January.

But I am jumping ahead and there is so much more to tell about 2007...maybe just best to suggest you check it out here as I blogged constantly this year. A review of which would not be complete without mentioning Sagar Shah, who is just now in India. He went to visit the famous octogenarian falconer Sirdar Mohamed Osman in Dehra Doon, whose books we publish (on hemp paper) at the Eryr Press. Sagar started his own website for hemp - http://www.hempandnaturalfibres.ning.com/ and will be giving me a report back from India.

So now I can jump ahead again...with a wish to make 2008 the best year ever for hemp - let's kick the press into action and get everyone wearing hemp so we can keep our trees and not use up everyone's water!

HEMP IN INDIA

Hemp has been cultivated for centuries in India, and is believed to have originated in that part of the world. Its role as medicine is mentioned in the work of Suskota, dating to before the 8th century AD. In the 16th century Raja Rudradeva of Kumoan advises its use in avian medicine. A 2nd or 3rd century AD work is printed on hemp paper with Sanskrit characters. European discovery of hemp use in India led to its inclusion in Garcia da Orta's Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India in 1563.

The British were keen to investigate the flora of India, sending botanist Dr. William Roxburgh to the sub-continent to study fibre plants. In 1800 he wrote: "I have seen it in great abundance, in a wild state, in the Deyra Doon, and also in the Khadir land of the Saharunpore district, especially along the upper part of the Doab Canal, where it was chiefly valued for its leaves; being made into bhang and supjee, and the stems, when dried up, being burnt for firewood."

He goes on to recommend its cultivation in the low Khadir land, where it was already found wild. He notes that the inhabitants of Malabar were reported to use it in their fishing nets.

Robert Wissett of the East India Co. wrote a treatise on the cultivation of hemp and Sunn hemp in 1804, which became a seminal work. Other writers attest to hemp's use in the nineteenth century as a fibre plant, Major Heber Drury observing in 1895 that: "... in point of strength and durability as evidence by the samples produced, there is no doubt that good Himalayan hemp is superior to Russian hemp..." At the time, Russian hemp was the preferred hemp, used on all British and American ships.

Hemp as medicine was well known also in India, as valuable as it was for a number of ailments, which Dr. William O'Shaughnessy wrote up in 1838-1840 for the Transactions of the Medical and Physical Society of Bengal. In that century hemp was regarded by all classes of society, with Queen Victoria using it as prescribed by the Royal Physician.

Today hemp is not as common in India, jute is the dominant fibre crop and other medicines are produced in great quantity. However, jute is a rather limited crop, and as pressure to produce food, fibre and medicine from the land increases, hemp is being reviewed. Not surprising a recent quote on the North American Industrial Hemp Council website stating that: "The hemp industry is growing faster than the expectation while the jute industry is declining."

Interest in hemp is growing not just in India but world-wide, and India is looking at this crop, so much a part of its history, to take a part in its future. While there is sufficient demand to sell thousands of tonnes of hemp each year, there will have to be machinery in place to process hemp into the many products for which it is renowned. With this infrastucture in place, India can very well be one of the leading hemp cultivating and processing nations, giving to the country great economic value as well as reducing the use of pesticides.

(related posts on India can be found on this blog, including a talk with Vandana Shiva)