New documentary on hemp: Bringing it Home by Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson

The battle to bring back hemp in the US is getting more and more intense, and is drawing media attention, albeit a bit slowly from the mainstream press. A new documentary by two young filmmakers has just been released, below is an article from the News & Observer in North Carolina, written by Glenn McDonald:




Christopher Columbus journeyed to America using hempen ropes and sails. The United States Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper. Hemp was a major agricultural boon to World War II domestic war efforts.
These are just a few of the more patriotic points made in the locally produced documentary film “Bringing It Home,” which premieres Thursday in Durham. The film examines the issue of industrial hemp farming and argues that federal law prohibiting the cultivation of hemp on U.S. soil is one of America’s most puzzling and misguided public policies. Despite having no psychoactive properties, industrial hemp is classified as a controlled substance under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
Filmmakers Linda Booker and Blaire Johnson – both graduates of Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies – began the project in 2010. The story would eventually lead them to film in the United Kingdom, Spain, Washington, D.C., California, and back to North Carolina. Booker, speaking from her home in Pittsboro, said she wasn’t a hemp advocate when the project began.
“I’m naturally a little bit of a skeptic on things, and like a lot of people, I didn’t really get what hemp was,” Booker said. “I thought it was just a stoner hippie issue. But it really didn’t take very long for me to get engaged and interested.”
While hemp is illegal to grow in the U.S., hemp products are not illegal to sell. In fact, American consumers purchase around $450 million worth of hemp products annually – mostly apparel and nutritional products like hemp oil. But all the hemp used for these products must be imported, mostly from Canada. The U.S. is the world’s largest importer of hemp. China is the world’s largest exporter.
The film begins with the story of Asheville home designer Anthony Brenner, who made headlines in 2010 when he built the nation’s first “hemp house,” made from environmentally friendly hempcrete – a building product similar to concrete. Brenner would later design his own hemp-based home to provide a safe indoor environment for his daughter Bailey, who has a rare genetic disorder that makes her sensitive to synthetic chemicals.
From here, the film explores the many industrial uses of hemp, focusing in particular on its utility as a building material, clothing fabric and food supplement. The filmmakers traveled to Spain and the U.K. to speak with hemp advocates and farmers. Footage from Berkshire, England, shows vast fields of hemp farmed as a cash crop, and several experts are consulted to extol the virtues of the plant.
“Bringing It Home” employs the usual techniques of the documentary film to tell its story – interviews, statistics, animations – and it covers a lot of ground.
Booker said the goal was to make the film relatively short, as part of the team’s education outreach campaign, so that it could be presented along with discussion events and panels. For a 52-minute film, it’s ambitious in scope, breaking down the various political, economic and historical aspects of the issue.
“The best analogy I can come up with is that it’s kind of like when a sculptor has a big chunk of marble in front of them, and they whittle and chip away to make something of it,” Booker said.
In developing the project, Booker and Johnson worked with the Durham-based Southern Documentary Fund (SDF), a nonprofit that provides feedback and helps filmmakers secure funding.
Triangle filmmakers
Rachel Raney, executive director of the SDF, said “Bringing It Home” is a good example of the kind of work that’s coming out of the Triangle’s booming documentary filmmaking community.
“This is a tough film to pull off,” Raney said. “It’s a really complex, multilayered topic. They knew they wanted to get this film in hands of the people working in this issue.”
Indeed, the film seems to be coming out at an opportune time. The hemp issue is being vigorously debated at the state and federal level, with several states having already passed legislation legalizing industrial hemp cultivation. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has continued to block such state initiatives, but the U.S. House of Representatives just last week approved a version of the highly contested Farm Bill that includes new rules on hemp farming.
“I think it’s incredibly timely,” Raney said of the film. “And that often happens in documentary films. You can start something when its not on anyone’s radar, then the stars align and everyone catches up with you.”  ‘Bringing It Home’A documentary on the potential and politics of the U.S. hemp industry will be screened at 6 and 8 p.m. Thursday at the Full Frame Theater at the American Tobacco Power Plant building in Durham. Both screenings are free and open to the public and will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/17/3113529/local-documentary-heralds-healthy.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/17/3113529/local-documentary-heralds-healthy.html#storylink=cpy

Hemp Solutions bedsheet sale

This just in from one of my favourite people in the hemp industry:




Dear All,

 

I am writing to let you know that Hemp Solutions will no longer be selling from its website: www.jillycholmondeley.com We are not closing the business.

 

Sadly it has become uneconomical to source hemp from Italy and at present there does not appear to be a viable alternative which can match the quality at a more economical price. Not to be defeated, we are looking at new markets - but that is a discussion for the future and it may not include bed linen.

 

There is still stock left here in London and we are offering this at cost price with payments made direct to Hemp Solutions Ltd. As you will already know, all stock is made from 100% hemp which has been tested at the Jodrell Laboratory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew where it was found to have naturally anti bacterial properties.

 

This offer is available until 9th April 2013

 

Single Set (90cms x 200 cms mattress) ivory or white, hemstitch or double row cord. Contains 1 fitted bottom sheet, 1 top sheet, 1 pillowcase £97.00 + VAT £19.40 = £116.40

King Set (150cms x 200 cms mattress) ivory or white, hemstitch or double row cord. Contains 1 fitted bottom sheet, 1 top sheet, 2 pillowcases £150.00 + VAT £30.00 = £ 180.00

Flat undecorated sheets available each £55.00 + VAT £11.00 = £66.00

Superking Set (180cms x 200 cms mattress) ivory or white, hemstitch or double row cord. Contains 1 fitted bottom sheet, 1 top sheet, 2 pillowcases £165.00 + VAT £33.00 = £198.00

Flat undecorated sheets available each £60.00 + VAT £12.00 = £72.00

Pillowcases Oxford 50 x 75 cms ivory or white, hemstitch or double row cord. £50.00 per pair

European 65 x 65 cms ivory or white, hemstitch or double row cord. £50.00 per pair

Baby sheets Cot mattress sizes 140 x 70 cms and 120 x 60 cms. Sold in sets comprising a fitted bottom sheet and flat top sheet decorated with a single row of satin stitch in pink, blue or white. £30.00 + VAT £6.00 = £36.00

Baby blankets Blankets in two sizes. each £40.00 + VAT £8.00 = £48.00

 

All prices exclude postage and packing except for central London where delivery can be made free of charge.

 

Thank you for all your support.

 

Kind regards

 

Jilly Cholmondeley

jilly@jillycholmondeley.com

Hemp article in the Guardian

This article appeared on 26 September, 2006 in the Guardian: 

Hemp is at hand

For decades, UK farmers were banned from growing a plant wrongly associated with potheads. But this versatile member of the cannabis family is moving back into the agricultural mainstream.

 

By Annie KellyAnnie Kelly

 

The Guardian, Tuesday 26 September 2006

 

Fifteen years ago, any farmer trying to grow hemp could have been arrested. But this year, more than 3,500 acres of it will be harvested as an industrial crop, processed, and made into a plethora of natural products, including insulation, horse bedding, fabric, biodiesel and paper.
Hemp is back and is throwing off its "hippy" shackles to emerge as one of the UK's fastest growing sustainable industries. "Not before time," says Bobby Pugh, environmental campaigner and hemp aficionado, who runs several successful hemp businesses. "Hemp can provide the answer to many of our environmental woes, yet it's been stigmatised, sidelined and denied for decades."
The hemp community has been shouting about the environmental benefits of the plant for years. An oft-quoted statistic is that hemp has more than 25,000 natural uses - ranging from food and oil supplements, made from its seeds, to strong industrial materials processed from its woody outer core. It is fast-growing and can thrive in British soil with little water and with no pesticides or other soil-polluting chemicals.
The ban on hemp cultivation, imposed in 1971 under the Misuse of Drugs Act, was finally overturned in 1993. Campaigners successfully argued that although industrial hemp was a variety of the cannabis plant, it could be grown as a legitimate crop as it contained practically no tetrahydrocannabinol, the property that gives marijuana - a different strain of cannabis - its potent effect.
Pugh says: "It's tragic when you think of the waste of natural resources - the thousands of trees that have been cut down to make paper when hemp could have been used, the tonnes of carbon dioxide that have been released into the air, the economies crippled by the cotton industry. All of this could have been avoided by using hemp."
Since 1993, the growth of the hemp industry has mostly been a matter of research and development. New farming and processing technology, and a lot of investment, are now needed to help industrial hemp to compete with other commercial crops.
BioRegional, a sustainable development company, has been researching and developing techniques that it hopes will help realise the potential of hemp as an alternative to cotton.
On an environmental level, this makes sense. Research by the Stockholm Institute has concluded that the "ecological footprint" of hemp is lower than polyester and half that of cotton. Unlike hemp, cotton needs huge amounts of water, herbicides and pesticides to help keep it disease-free. "The world has reached its limit on cotton production," says Sue Riddlestone, a director at BioRegional. "We need to find an alternative to cotton that we can produce in volume and, with the right technology, hemp could provide the answer, as well as being far kinder to the environment."
Comparable quality
Riddlestone says the major obstacle is that they have yet to find ways to produce a hemp material that is of comparable quality to the cotton we have all become accustomed to wearing. "There are lots of small businesses selling imported hemp clothing and textiles, but we just haven't got the capacity in the UK yet," she says. "Manufacturers need to be shown a good product, with an established supply chain, before they'll invest. I think we're two to three years off making this happen, but it will come."
In other areas, hemp is booming. Hemcore, the UK's first large-scale hemp company, has seen rapid growth over the last five years. It now owns the only hemp processing plant in the UK and currently contracts 40 farmers to grow 3,500 acres of hemp a year, which it converts into industrial materials. It currently provides all BMW 5 Series cars with hemp door panels, as well as making high-quality horse bedding.
"It's cost us a hell of a lot of money to get where we are today, but now I think we've got a commercially viable business on our hands," says Hemcore director, John Hobson. "It's helpful that companies are wising up to the need to act in a more environmentally sustainable way, but we've also managed to show them that we're more than a couple of well-meaning hippies and that we've got a serious product to offer."
According to Hemcore, the next big growth area for hemp will be the construction industry, especially as an environmentally-friendly alternative to glass- and fibre-based insulation. Adnams, brewers of traditional English beer, is using bricks made of a combination of lime and hemp in a new "eco-brewery" it is building in Southwold, Suffolk.
It is also easier for farmers to grow hemp than ever before. In the years after the ban, farmers wanting to grow the crop were still viewed with suspicion. They were required to apply for individual licences from the Home Office and were subjected to spot checks and testing by the local drugs squad to make sure nobody was using hemp as a cover for growing fields of marijuana. Most hemp farmers now work under contract to companies such as Hemcore and are required only to notify the local police station about where they will grow their crop.
Ian Squire, a farmer contracted to grow hemp for Hemcore on his farm near Rochford, Essex, says: "It's definitely moved on. It was too much hassle before, but now we're treating it like any other non-food crop. It's quick to grow, and finally we can make a profit growing it."
He admits that his hemp fields are still subject to the odd midnight raid conducted by misguided locals who see the distinctive pronged leaf and draw the wrong conclusion. "You try to tell people they could smoke my whole 350 acres before they feel a thing," says Squire. "It's ludicrous that people actually think that large-scale professional farmers are openly growing fields of marijuana, but it's amazing how uneducated people are."
The hemp community insists that it is moving hemp away from its associations with drugs and the people who smoke them, but tensions still remain.
"I loathe the fact that there are still people who think the hemp industry is run by a bunch of potheads trying to legitimise their own drug habits," says Kenyon Gibson, hemp researcher and co-author of Hemp for Victory, a new book on the history and uses of hemp. "It could not be further from the truth, but there are people out there who benefit from keeping the link between hemp and marijuana alive and kicking."
He believes the misrepresentation of hemp as a dangerous narcotic has been pushed for decades by international conglomerates, who are well aware of the threat that the plant poses to their trade.
"It was the large multinationals who helped ban hemp decades ago, and it's the large multinationals who are still ensuring that natural alternatives to their products are being sidelined even in this time of environmental chaos," Gibson says. "Look at how many trees we could save by investing in a global hemp paper industry. Look at its potential to contribute to natural ethanol, yet we're lagging behind countries such as Brazil which are making great strides in creating fuel from domestic products."
Token investments
"We can't let token investments from the government into niche hemp industries divert us from keeping on pushing for the true environmental potential of hemp to finally be exploited," Gibson continues. "The true power of hemp will be unlocked only when we're able to use it to challenge large-scale, environmentally-damaging industries, and this isn't happening yet."
It is a line that companies such as Hemcore are eager to distance themselves from. Hobson says that his company prefers to treat hemp as a sustainable but commercial product, rather than getting into arguments about corporate politics.
But for Gibson, Pugh and others like them, the two issues are inextricably linked. "As hemp once posed a threat to some investors, so it does again today - for which reason some would rather leave the issue of hemp alone," Gibson says. "With such a commodity, many positive changes can be put in place from which we can all benefit. The battle to get this recognised still needs to be fought."
· A history of usefulness
· Britain's naval strength in the 16th century was reliant on hemp rope, to the extent that Queen Elizabeth I decreed that farmers had to grow hemp on part of their land.
· The oldest piece of material known to man is a piece of hemp fabric, dating back to 8000BC.
· Hemp-seed milk was used as a cure for tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Czechoslovakia in the 1920s and 1930s.
· Hemp seeds are acknowledged as being one of the best sources of essential fatty acids. Health guru Gillian McKeith (right) is promoting the benefits of hemp seeds in her latest Channel 4 TV series.
· In 1941, Ford produced a car that was 70% made from hemp plastic and designed to run on hemp fuel. The US bans on hemp and alcohol (Mississippi, in 1966, was the last state to repeal prohibition) meant that the car was never mass produced.
· Rembrandt and Van Gogh both painted on hemp canvas, using oil paints made from hemp seeds.
· America's Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper in 1776. Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson farmed hemp, and the statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin owned a hemp-paper mill.
Kenyon Gibson is co-author, with Nick and Cindy MacKintosh, of Hemp for Victory: History and Qualities of the World's Most Useful Plants, published this month by Whitaker Publishing (price £17.95). He also writes a blog at www.Hempforvictory.blogspot.com

FARMING TODAY

The BBC has a show called Farming Today, and about once a year they discuss hemp. Recently Peter Tat of the BBC contacted me and picked my brain about the state of the industry in the UK, and I gave him a rough history and told him rather candidly what I thought, which is along these lines:

Hemcore, a company started in the '90s, had the monopoly over seed sales, and the gov regluated which varieties, so only about 19, out of 1,000, could be sold. Basically Hemcore farmers produced low grade fibre for insulation and/or seed for oil. Paper and textiles did not catch on. I know a few people who would like to start these up, notably Jane Pasquill in Cornwall, but this takes more commitment than just chopping up bast for car door insulation. Paper would be easier, but even when I made 3 tons, or rather commissioned 3 tons under the aegis of the well known and colourful character John Hanson of Lyme Regis, we bought French (they are the largest EU hemp growers) hemp and had it pulped in Spain. It got made in Scotland, that was a decade ago. I still have a bit left.
So why are there not more? Most hemp businesses can buy processed goods from China, and most companies in the UK are low budget affairs, I believe Sativa is the most well funded and well run. Two brothers in West London, which became the hub of the hemp industry, with them and THTC, myself and my co-authors, and Bobby Pugh who lives and now warehouses his stock in West London. So Hemcore sold seed, dealt with farmers, did some of the middleman bit, and then went bust I understand, though I cannot in all fairness speak for them. We are sort of on other sides of the fence, as the Guardian article pointed out. We talked and got along, but they did their thing and I did mine. Obviously the issue of farmers not getting paid recently has caused a dent in the overall confidence in the hemp industry, and caused others to state that there ought to be more companies that sell seed. I understand there was a company that did, but it was not well funded.

The future holds a bright possibility - as hemp, without human bickering, politics, etc., is a simple crop - 80-100 days, easy to harvest, etc. My suggestion has always been grow it for seed, as there is a proven market (over 12 seed/oil bottlers in the UK, they seem to do well) and then use the stems for paper, then rough textiles.

Why? Because then a proven product can make the money while other products which require experimentation, milling, etc. can be worked out. Years ago BioRegional made field trials and only went for textile hemp, which as I told them, would not work out. The UK is not a milling country. They could, however, have made coarse matting, rugs, etc., and/or paper.

Peter asked about the future of the hemp industry in the UK, and I told him the future is what we make of it. With greater understanding, and a more realistic and gradual approach, we can make of it an industry that will provide much needed jobs in the UK. I recall also mentioning that there was little support from the Labour government! I got more from the Lib Dems, people like Baroness Jenny Tonge for instance, and the Tories - Boris Johnson took my book and even sent a copy to his illustrious dad, Stanley. Are the Tories going to get in and grow more hemp? I hope so, but we will see. Some of the BBC's questions remain to be answered.

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.