Hemp Industry Finding Fertile Ground in Foreign Countries
By Joan Sanstadt Field Editor
But "around the world" doesn't include the U.S., where hemp production has been banned for decades. It does include Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Holland, Austria, China, England, and Canada.
"These countries have outlawed marijuana, but because of the value and need of fiber, they've differentiated between industrial hemp and marijuana. They're keeping one illegal and allowing the other to be grown atleast in test plots," explains Erwin A. "Bud" Sholts, who helped put together last month's North American Industrial Hemp Forum in Minneapolis.
Sholts directs the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection's (DATCP) Ag Development and Diversification (ADD) Program and works with the aquaculture industry in the state. Just last week he was elected to a three- year term as a member of the board of directors of the New Uses Council.
Could hemp become a "new" alternative crop in Wisconsin? Sholts says the answer is "both yes and no."
The "yes" part of his reply recognizes the crop being grown successfully in Wisconsin in the earlier half of this century. In fact, during World War II, some farmers were asked to grow it because of short sisal supplies. So the crop is suitable to Wisconsin growing conditions.
But "no" is the answer until the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) changes its mind and decides to take another look at the crop it now shuns as a potential source of an illegal drug.
For advocates of industrial hemp, there appeared to be a brief moment when the USDA wavered. It happened in California in 1994, when it allowed 16,000 hemp plants to be grown on USDA land in southern California. The plants were to be used "for industrial study" and were planted by hemp advocates.
Four months later the USDA changed its mind. The agency ordered the crop seized and plowed under by California law enforcement officials because, it said, it feared local high school students were accessing the crop.
What is referred to as "the U.S. ban" is actually the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act passed by Congress. The intent of the act was to prohibit the use of marijuana, but the resulting red tape it created made production of industrial hemp nearly impossible. Although hemp for fiber contains 1% or less of THC (the psychoactive quality), while marijuana has 3 to 15 %, the distinction is seldom made. Hemp production today is treated as a felony in the U.S. because it assumes all hemp crops will produce marijuana.
Other states
Not all states are taking such a wait-and-see approach. The first attempt to enact
legislation at the state level occurred last year in Colorado. State Senator Lloyd Casey
introduced the Hemp Production Act in the senate. The bill would have allowed and
regulated the cultivation of industrial (low-THC) hemp as a cash crop for Colorado
farmers.
Colorado's Senate ag committee held hearings on the bill and initially "responded very favorably toward it," according to a paper issued by the Colorado Hemp Initiative Project (COHIP).
CO-HIP is a grass roots, all-volunteer environmental and political action group dedicated to promoting the hemp plant as an alternative, natural, and renewable resource. Members say reintroducing hemp in Colorado would not only give Colorado farmers a profitable alternative crop, it would also provide a domestic supply of hemp for businesses that must import hemp pulp.
The committee was pressured to kill the bill when the DEA stepped in and called it a "shallow ruse for the legalization of marijuana," the CO-HIP report indicates.
Casey, along with members of CO-HIP and other interested parties, met with DEA representatives to discuss their opposition to the bill and the positive values of industrial hemp. At that meeting the DEA acknowledged that it currently treats hemp and marijuana as the same variety of plant, with no distinction based on THC content.
"However, the DEA told us they are in the process of revising their policies to treat industrial hemp differently," CO-HIP reports.
In a telephone interview, Casey told Agri-View, "There has been some follow-up with the DEA," but he indicated he "was not sure as to the extent of that follow-up."
Although the 1995 bill failed, Casey is preparing to reintroduce the measure in the Colorado Senate in mid-January.
Political reality isn't lost on the Colorado Democrat. "One lady lawmaker who voted for my bill last year is up for re-election in 1996.
I'm sure her opponent will use that vote to accuse her of being soft on drugs," Casey said.
"A meeting of high-level professional people in Colorado would not only help publicize our bill," Casey told Agri-View, "it would also help get across the idea we're not talking about pushing drugs. We're talking about a legitimate crop for a legitimate industry."
Of the 35-member Colorado Senate, Casey says, "Only two or three take me seriously. But on the positive side, I'm told the Colorado Grange has voted unanimously to endorse our bill. And Bob Winter, president of the Weld County Farm Bureau, has secured the endorsement of his county unit and is working to get the backing of the Colorado Farm Bureau."
Laura Kriho, public relations director for COHIP, had more light to shed on talks with the DEA. "In our first postconference contact with DEA officials in Washington, D.C., they seemed noncommittal. However, since then, DEA people here in Boulder have asked us for more information on how industrial hemp was regulated in other countries. I think they are studying it, and that's hopeful.
"What it really depends on," Kriho emphasizes, "is whether or not companies like International Paper, which would greatly benefit from an alternative fiber source, are willing to hire lobbyists to work with us here in Colorado."
Kriho said the DEA has made a verbal commitment to send representatives to a Dec. 9 conference CO-HIP is sponsoring in Boulder. For more information, Kriho can be telephoned at 303-492-4859 or 303-258-7746.
Kentucky also interested
Kentuckians have formed the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association, Inc.
"to promote the production and marketing of highquality industrial fiber hemp and
hemp seed."
A report by the survey research center at the University of Kentucky in September of 1995 found residents who understood the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana favored legislation to license Kentucky farmers to grow industrial hemp as a cash crop. But that survey concluded, "Increased support for this legislation requires an educational program to be designed for individuals who do not know the difference between industrial hemp and marijuana."
Gale Glenn, a Kentucky farmer who favors growing industrial hemp, served on a task force appointed by Kentucky's governor earlier this year. Because the chairman concluded that industrial hemp was being promoted by a pro-marijuana faction, the task force disbanded after two meetings, despite protests by Glenn and four other members.
"I'm a 65-year-old grandmother and tobacco farmer, not a marijuana advocate" is her selfdescription. She views industrial hemp as a potential cash crop for Kentucky farmers and one that is well suited to be grown in rotation with tobacco and corn. A member of the growers' cooperative, Glenn says the group was organized in anticipation of the legalization of industrial hemp and would only sell certified seed to farmers under specific legal conditions.
She expresses an optimistic view of the eventual legalization of industrial hemp production and wants to see Kentucky take a lead role when that happens.
Overseas
"In all likelihood, the farming of fiber hemp will become legal in Germany in 1996."
That's the message offered by the Journal of the International Hemp Association,
which says laws are being developed and will likely be adopted by the European
Union to allow this to happen.
An industrial hemp variety suited to textile manufacture is likely to be the first grown by German farmers, the journal speculates. That's because German manufacturers have already delivered two years of high-quality hemp textile collections that are in demand by national clothing chains and ecological mailorder companies.
The journal points to improvement in the quality of hemp fabrics the past two years. Like manufacturers in the U.S., German companies have had to get their hemp from other countrifles, buying both unfinished fabrics and, in some cases, hemp yarn. Being able to grow their own would enhance the ability of German manufacturers to guarantee processing and product quality.
German companies stress the country's technological advances in being able to manufacture quality textiles made from industrial hemp. One of the first products to be mass produced for export is likely to be jeans.
Can the U.S. textile industry, as well as its paper industry, afford to wait while other countries take the lead in producing industrial hemp supplies?
Industrial hemp advocates in Colorado and Kentucky are doing more than hope. They're actively preparing for the day when they believe the USDA and DEA will lend approval so their farmers can be among the first to offer hemp for fiber to U.S. manufacturers.