ETHICAL FASHION CONTEST

Today on the hippy shopper site a contest for ethical fashionistas was announced. Contestants must be between 18-30 years of age. Submission starts today until 31 January, 2008. There will be a panel of 9 judges, including Jenny Ambrose of Enamore and the Lawson Brothers of The Hemp Trading Co.

So I'm thinking about lying about my age and entering my ugly hemp bag, which we just love wearing aroung posh spots just to raise awareness of hemp. But would that be ethical? And would the ugly hemp bag win? Could I bribe the judges?

By the way, I am refusing to sell the bag to people I don't like, especially stupid celebrities. Now that's ethics.

LETTER FROM GEORGINA DOWNS IN THE INDEPENDENT

In a previous post (8 June, 2006) there is mention of Georgina Downs, the woman who took on the government over the issue of pesticide spraying. For some reason, this was a very unlicensed business, and it was making people sick. Downs was persistent and got the Secretary of the Environment to take action. In today's letters section of the Independent she weighs in with her view of the legislation: "There are serious flaws throughout the existing regulations, particularly the lack of protection for people in the countryside from cropspraying."

Perhaps Downs expects the government to care for the people in the countryside, which has been ruled from London by a government that cares very much - for profits made by non-British corporations. Just ask the Carlyle Group about how kind Tony Blair has been to give them £335m worth of Quinetic stock for only £40. Someone made a mistake, accidentally on purpose, or was just very kind, but not to the people in the countryside who make our bread and butter. There are only so many hours in the day, and when they are spent in selling off British assets to George Bush, there is not a lot of time left for UK citizens.

Which, as Downs points out, can be illegal - as pesticides are not supposed to be approved for use until risk assessments have been undertaken to provide evidence that there will not be a health risk; her letter makes it clear that "there has never been an adequate risk assessment for the longterm exposure for those who live, work or go to school near sprayed fields."

She is not speaking out of her own opinion here, she goes on to note: "At least three official reports have heavily criticised the existing monitoring system for pesticides, the Select Committee on Agriculture report in 1987, the British Medical Association report in 1990 and more recently the Royal Commission report, all of which have concluded that none of the government agencies involved with pesticides had made any serious attempt to gather data on the chronic effects of pesticides on human health."

So what does the government say about it? That a 'robust system' is in place. Yeah, right. Translated into English that means "bugger off and leave us alone to suck up to pesticide companies." Which is what many ministers will do if left alone. That is why I do not leave them alone, I make it a point now to contact them every day. Some are responsive, some OK, some have hostile press secretaries who would really like me to go to hell. I will be posting the responses here in the near future and talking publicly about it as well.

Part of the way to alleviate pesticide spraying is to sow hemp, for which, according to a Defra report made in 2005, there are no listed pesticides. The photo above, (taken by Dru Lawson of The Hemp Trading Co.) is of a field harvested in Essex on 4 August, and it was then noted that no pesticides were used and neither were there any infestations. That same report, kindly sent to me by Mark Quinlan at Defra, recommended hemp for this reason and for reasons of biodiversity.

Continual pressure on Defra officials to get them to do their job will be of great benefit to everyone, and I encourage all to follow Downs' example. The switchboard number for Parliament is 020 7219 3000, which gets one through to Lords and Commons.

~you don't get what you expect, you get what you inspect~

HEMP MAKES FRONT PAGE

OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

The storm brewing in California over hemp legislation has been a story carried here and there for months now, but on Monday, 28 August, it hit the front page of the Grey Lady in the Big Apple. Patricia Leigh Brown did a first rate scoop, and her leading character, a cotton farmer named Charles Meyer, described by her as having a "flinty Clint Eastwood demeanour", blows away the stereotype of the hemp activist as some kind of slacker with an attic full of grow lights. Meyer supports the war in Iraq and thinks if you are unwilling to recite the pledge of allegiance, well, it's love it or leave...hasta la vista as far as Meyer is concerned. And Meyer may be saying that to Governor Terminator soon if Arnie does not go along with Meyer's belief that hemp out to be grown in America, maybe right next to the apple pie farm.

As Brown points out, this is not the first time a state has passed a bill calling for hemp cultivation to be legal. Each time there were roadblocks, from gubernatorial vetos to DEA paperwork.

If this is front page news in New York, it is THE issue in California these days. For many hemp entrepeneurs there, John Roulac, Mina Hegaard, Larry Serbin and Marie Mills, this means a lot; they could buy hemp grown in America. But not if Arnie says nein, or whatever it is that tough guys say in the movies when they refuse to allow Americans to exercise their rights. Brown makes note of the fact that both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp. The image above, taken in England in August 2006 by Dru Lawson of The Hemp Trading Co., was a common sight in colonial America, (well, maybe the tractor was not quite a part of the scene); Kentucky became the prime grower through most of the nineteenth century, taking over from the thirteen colonies after industrialisation took root in the north.

If the California hemp bill goes forward, Kentucky and other states may well be producing once again. That means income and jobs for the USA. Unless Arnie does the wrong thing...

HEMP IN ESSEX

Yesterday, 4 August, Dru Lawson of the Hemp Trading Co. (www.thtc.co.uk) gave me a ride out to Rochford in Essex to view a hemp harvest, to which Sue Riddlestone and Emily Stott of BioRegional had kindly invited us. We were joined with researchers from Leeds University and Cranfield University and Jane Taylor of Positive News.

Three varieties, Santhika, Fedora and Chameleon stood about 8 feet (2.6metres) high, waving their green buds in the wind. Living emerald is how James Lane Allen described hemp in 1900, and this lived up to his words; Chameleon, in my opinion, in its lovely chartreuse tone, even exceeded them.

The plots were grown to test green decortication techniques and study stem cell structure with a view to facilitating a UK hemp textile industry. The green fibres, stripped from the inner hurds, were quite wet in this state and had to be pressed between two rollers to remove moisture. Further processes will be needed to rend them into cloth.

At present the hemp textile industry is centred in China and Romania. Italy was for some time renowned for producing the finest fibres, grown in the Piedmont region. Hemp is grown in Italy now for Giorgio Armani.

There are economic reasons for developing a hemp textile industry in any country, but there are also ecological reasons, the main one being the fact that cotton, at present the number 1 textile fibre in the world, uses up water and requires pesticides. (see related posts on cotton on this blog with the word search feature).

Sue gave me a copy of a book, Bioregional Solutions: For Living on One Planet, writtten by herself and Pooran Desai (both founders of BioRegional). In it (Chapter 7, "Hemp, Clothes and Fair Trade"), there is a good account of cotton, which the authors assert, is the "world's most water-intensive crop."

Cotton is grown mainly in the US, Israel, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Uzbekistan. This last country is the fifth largest producer, supplying 90% of the UK's demand in the '90s. This industry has turned the Aral Sea and its surroundings into a disaster, shutting down the commercial fishing industry and devastating wildlife, including migratory birds. Local farms are unable to carry on, so there is a shortage of fresh, local produce. Such facts are brought out in their book and are quite enough to show that cotton is an unsustainable crop.

HRH Prince Charles, who graced the book with a foreword, takes an interest in the future of his country and writes: "In a world dominated by the short-term, the need for constructive thinking about our long-term future on this planet, based on wisdom and enduring values, has never been greater."

Hemp cultivation is one part of that wisdom, and it is good to see those lanky, emerald and chartreuse stalks swaying gently in the Essex wind.