Hollenbeck: WHAT ABOUT HEMP?

            Because the word “hemp” is commonly heard of and a lot of misconceptions are made about this word, I myself have been curious to learn more about it.  A few years ago, the voters in South Dakota overwhelmingly approved the growing of industrial hemp as a cash crop within the state, which passage was quickly vetoed by our then governor as she associated it with marijuana and its use.  I knew that ropes were made of hemp until in recent years when polyester (or plastic) was introduced into rope making, and I was once gifted a lovely journal made of paper made from hemp, but other than that I knew of very little usage of the product. About the time that legislation for the approval of raising hemp in South Dakota was on the table, there was quite a bit of information regarding its uses, one of which was “there is nothing made of plastic that cannot be made from hemp.” In this day and age when almost everything is made of plastic and said plastic is causing many environmental and health hazards, it certainly peeked my interest. The first thing that came to mind was net-wrap. Farmers and ranchers used to stack hay and feed it loose, a labor-intensive job. The only baled hay we ever had on this ranch was small bales that were tightly bound with twine…made from hemp. Eventually the big round baler came into play and is used almost entirely to this day. It is a fast and efficient way to harvest hay and preserves the feed well, but is mostly bound with what they call net-wrap. Net-wrap tightly binds the bale, which helps maintain its shape as well as making handling and storage easier and helps protect the crop from spoilage. This sounds like the perfect scenario, but there is a downside. No matter how well the feeder tries to remove the wrap from the bale, some of it always manages to get fed along with the hay. Hemp is a by-product of petroleum and is not biodegradable, and is dangerous to the critter if ingested. Each year, many heads of livestock die because of this. It would be wonderful if products, such as net-wrap could be made of hemp rather than plastic.

            Have we gone backwards in producing more products from hemp? In 1941, Henry Ford built a car out of hemp plastic that ran on hemp fuel. This car was made of a mixture of hemp fibers, soybeans, straw and resin, while the chassis was made from a combination of hemp and steel, which made the car lighter than fiberglass and ten times tougher than steel. The car ran on ethanol made from hemp and other agricultural waste. Although it was a remarkable achievement, the hemp ethanol fuel was considered a sustainable alternative to traditional fuels because it was made from a renewable resource and produced fewer emissions. The car was also incredibly efficient, with a fuel rating of around 40 miles per gallon. As you might imagine, the whole project never became widespread due to political factors. The government was not keen on promoting the use of renewable fuel source that could potentially threaten the oil business. As a result, the use of ethanol fuel was heavily restricted and eventually fell out of use altogether.  Ford’s dream of creating a sustainable car made from renewable resources never became a reality. The reason is believed that Ford faced opposition from the oil and steel industries, who saw his vision as a thread to their businesses.

            Of course, the hemp industry does not have the money that the oil and gas industry has, and is unable to finance campaigns for our government officials, but dealing with the current shortages of fuel and electricity, perhaps the powers-that-be should be thinking, “What about hemp?”