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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Producers gearing up for hemp boom
Press and Journal
Saturday 09 Mar 2002 BRITAIN'S hemp producers feel that after years of battling bureaucracy they may finally be on the brink of a boom - and can count the Queen among their customers. Industrial hemp saw its main markets dry up a century ago even before being banned as a member of the cannabis family, but was once so crucial to the navy that King Henry VIII made it a com-pulsory crop to safeguard supplies for making sails and rope. 'We've felt a little bit tied up in bureaucracy. We're getting there but we've had to fight every inch of the way," said Ian Low, director of Hemcore, the biggest UK hemp company. Industrial hemp was banned until 1993 even though it contains a mere 0.2% of THC, the main active ingredient of the narcotic. Hemp growers still need a licence to farm it, and have had trouble separating public perception of it from its narcotic relative. Producers argue that its environmental benefits and commercial opportunities could help wildlife and revitalise farming and, although its original uses in paper and cloth are now small-scale in Britain new technologies could employ it in a whole range of applications. Hemcore recently gained the prestigious Royal Warrant for its hemp horse-bedding after five years of supplying it to the Queen's stables but sees a potentially more important use in the car industry. Industry figures show car makers used 10,000 tonnes of plant fibre - including hemp - in 2001. It acts as an insulator against sound and cold in door and roof panels. Hemcore already supplies hemp to German car makers BMW and Mercedes, and estimates demand could be in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes by the end of the decade. Government figures show 2,500 hectares were grown in Britain in 2001. This is still minute compared to the 2million hectares of wheat but Hem- core alone is planning to increase the area devoted to hemp by half this year. Others in the industry say a hemp boom could benefit the rural economy and help it to climb out of the slump caused by the BSE and foot and mouth animal diseases. 'It could revitalise the farming economy," said Derek Bielby of the Yorkshire-based Hemp Union, which makes hemp clothing and products, and grows and processes its own crop. The Suffolk Housing Council finished two houses made largely of hemp last year, and is monitoring how they perform. Richard Scales, a partner at the architects' firm that designed the houses said tests were proving positive. Sarah Yearsley, of Sussex-based hemp food firm MotherHemp, said the seeds were another key element of the crop, as they contained all the essential fatty acids used by the body as building blocks for protein. But growers and users of hemp point mainly to the crop's environmental credentials as its chief advantage. The National Farmers Union say the crop is ideal fix cleaning up the soil as part of a rotation - its long roots help to condition the soil when it has been damaged by other crops, and to break up hard-packed earth. Mr Bielby said the crop is hardy, can be grown anywhere and outgrows weeds. "It doesn't need pesticides and herbicides," he said. 'This is a golden opportunity for farmers to use a sustainable resource."
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