Interview with Joe Hickey and John Roulac on Industrial Fiber Hemp

Acres, U.S.A. Feb. 1996, pp. 19-23 (Part II)

ACRES U.S.A. Are the Europeans further along with this and, if so, why?

ROULAC. Yes, the Europeans are further along with this. Specifically
Germany and Holland are leading the world in hemp. Now, in Eastern Europe
and France there has never been any elimination of hemp. Those countries
have been producing hemp continuously for over 500 years or longer, since
it migrated from Asia to Europe. Naturally [reintroduction] was easier
for the European countries that had neighbors [with a recent history of
hemp production], such as Hungary and Poland and France, than for it to be
reintroduced to countries such as Germany and England which had bans on
hemp up until recently. I expect the same to happen in the United States
as Canada moves forward toward commercial production. For example, in the
Canadian paper called 'Farm and Country' a recent editorial stated: "We
continue to import our supplies and hemp products will gain nothing for
Canada. It is time to reassess the potential for hemp production in Canada
and allow its production and sale under strict control if deemed necessary.
Let's stop suppressing a potential industry." That was written by an
apple grower from Prince Edward Island.

ACRES U.S.A. What else is going on in Europe?

ROULAC. In France the company that manufactures Kleenex proceeses hemp
into a variety of specialty papers. After the English farmers got upset
that the French farmers were able to grow hemp, England lifted the ban in
1993 and now there are about 3,000 acres growing in England and, they're
using the fiber for animal bedding and beginning trials with textiles and
paper. The Dutch government has invested over $30 million in research in
state-of-the-art chemo-mechanical processing of hemp into pulp for paper
products. A major benefit of this is, it reduces the energy costs and the
waste water from processing plants can be used to irrigate fields. And a
major benefit of processing hemp into paper is that you can eliminate
easily the use of chlorine and other harsh solvents and chemicals.

ACRES U.S.A. It doesn't require any of those to make a nice paper product?

ROULAC. Correct, because of the lower lignin content. Hungary was one of
the largest growers and processors, especially during the [days of the]
Soviet Union's empire, their industry which almost went into a nonexistent
state in 1993, is now rebounding and Seattle-based American Hemp
Mercantile, has a joint venture with the Hungarian Investment Banking
Corporation and several other partners, and they are investing a total of
$8 million in a textile and fiberboard factory in Hungary.

ACRES U.S.A. There's a company in Seattle already incorporated that's
actively pursuing this?

ROULAC. Correct. American Hemp Mercantile. Their retail sales in their
Seattle store are over $20,000 a month.

ACRES U.S.A. They're selling hemp products made in Europe?

ROULAC. Right, they're importing.

ACRES U.S.A. What kinds of research are going on in Germany?

ROULAC. They are working on a wide range of processes, including hemp
cottonization and also manufacturing the hurds into plastics for snowboards
and skateboards as well as taking the hemp oil, which is similar to flax
oil, and adding an enzyme and converting it into a very economic and
effective detergent that has the same or better quality than synthetic
detergents, as well as being biodegradable. Germany is making hemp
burgers, and hemp seed has the ability to be made into a wide range of
foods, with some people predicting that hemp will see a similar growth
spurt as soy foods have experienced since the 1960s. The hemp seed is more
digestible than soybeans, and can be grown in more regions throughout North
America.

ACRES U.S.A And does it have a similar protein content?

ROULAC. It has a superior protein digestibility, a little less protein
than soybeans but more available to the human body.

ACRES U.S.A. At the risk of cheerleading, it does seem like there is no
end to this stuff.

ROULAC. The oil can be used for a wide range of cosmetics and lubricants
and nutritional supplement and salad oil. In Asia, they are growing over
100,000 acres in China, much of it for textiles and paper. Recently
American and European investors put in $11 million in a textile mill and
the hemp is harvested by hand and brought to the factory by bicycle or
cart. In Australia, the largest newspaper pulp producer is buying hemp
paper right now for initial testing, and there is a resurgence of hemp in
Australia, with dozens of new companies formed in the last 24 months.

HICKEY. It works great for salad oil, though for motor oil [the cost]
would probably be prohibitive. But back when farming was a basic staple
they used hemp oil in their gearboxes. An old gentleman I met told me a
good story about his grandfather. They had been using hemp oil in their
gear boxes in their tractors and after 1937, when the oil disappeared
because of the tax act. They started using petroleum oil in their gear
boxes and the more the tractor had set for years and years, the grass had
grown underneath them with no problems. After they switched to petroleum,
if the gearboxes leaked a little and they just added more oil, where it was
leaking on the ground the grass had turned yellow and died. He remembered
his grandfather pointing to the ground and saying, "Son, that's going to
be the ruination of us all." It was when they switched from using hemp oil
in their gear boxes to using petroleum.

ACRES U.S.A. Would hemp oil be useful as a lubricant for tools or as a
fine parts oil?

HICKEY. It's an excellent lubricant because it doesn't lose its viscosity.
One thing that they are using the oil for right now -- the high end use of
it -- is because South America and Chile are producing a lot of hemp oil
right now and it sells for like $120-140 per gallon. They're using it in
cosmetics. It makes an excellent base for cosmetics. I use it daily on my
face after I get out of the shower and it puts elasticity back into my
skin. Another good story that I enjoy telling is, when all the Prohibition
came about we had the underground miners in Kentucky and Virginia and when
they would go into the mines they would take cages with canaries in them.
The canaries were there in case the methane gas built up. When it did the
canaries were the first to go, so when the miners didn't hear the canaries
singing anymore they knew they better get out of the mine because the
methane gas was building up. After the Prohibition hemp seed became
scarce, the seeds were taken off the market, and they had been feeding hemp
seeds to the canaries. When the hemp seed was taken away from the canaries
they quit singing. When the canaries quit singing the miners revolted and
refused to go into the mines until the birds were given hemp seed again.
They made a special stipulation in the rules and allowed the canaries to be
given the hemp seed again. I always thought that would be a great name for
a book on the renaissance of the coming hemp industry, "When the Canaries
Stop Singing."

ACRES U.S.A. What about the environmental advantages?

HICKEY. It's going to grow taller faster than anything else that's grown
out there and for that reason it's an ideal weed control because when you
plant hemp you plant it three to four inches apart and after about three
weeks it completely covers and shades the ground, disallowing anything else
from growing and compete with the nutrition in the ground. It's also
drought tolerant. If you get a good start on the crop you can have short
or a low rainfall and it is still going to give you something. If you get
a good start on the crop you can have a short or a low rainfall and it is
still going to give you something. If you have corn or tobacco and it
starts to dry up you could theoretically lose your whole crop. The same is
true for wheat or soybeans. And you're not going to use any pesticides
because hemp basically doesn't have any enemies. Then the crop is going to
produce twice as much fiber as cotton will on the same acreage, but you can
do it without either herbicides or pesticides.

ACRES U.S.A. It has no natural predators whatsoever?

HICKEY. I say it has no natural pests, but tobacco has a cutworm that will
effect hemp but not to a large extent. This is a quote from the January
issue of 1943, the senior agronomist is B.B. Robinson, Division of Cotton,
Other Fiber Crops and Disease, Bureau of Plant Industry and Agriculture
Engineering, Agricultural Resource Aministration: "In the United States
there are no hemp diseases of economic limportance and hemp has not been
seriously attacked by insects. The European corn borer and similar
stem-boring insects occasionally kill a hemp stem. However, they have not
proved important perhaps because hemp has not been grown to any extent in
the different sections of the United States where the European corn borer
is a serious pest. Broomrape is a small weed, six to 15 inches high,
parasitic on the roots of hemp, tobacco, and tomatoes."

ACRES U.S.A. What has the Kentucky Hemp Grower's Cooperative Association
been doing since you reactivated it a year ago?

HICKEY. Let me give you just a quick background of the coop. It was
started in 1942 in response to the war effort and it was set up to protect
and organize the farmers in the industry much like the tobacco coop was.
There was a gentleman named F.G. Clay who was the founder and president of
the coop until 1943 when Roosevelt asked him to come to Washington, D.C.
and run the federal Hemp for Victory program. The coop was in existence
until 1948, when the war was over and the demand dropped.

ACRES U.S.A. What was hemp used for in the war effort?

HICKEY. They used it for webbing in parachutes, for laces and the sides of
shoes, cordage for the ships, for ropes, and they used the oil for airplane
engines because its viscosity stayed the same at any altitude. There was a
number of uses, we've tried to get some of the information on the different
uses that the government had for it and it's like finding a needle in a
haystack. Some of the stuff is just buried so far down and a lot of the
records are gone. It was a war commodity. But the impetus of reorganizing
the coop came when Kentucky's governor, Brereton C. Jones, signed an
executive order on November 23, 1994, and the executive order was called
the Hemp and Related Fibers Crops Task Force. This task force was set up
to look at hemp, jute, sisal, kenaf, any of the fiber crops that we could
use to supplement the farm income here.

ACRES U.S.A. And that's because the state needs an alternative to tobacco?

HICKEY. Not really an alternative to tobacco, but supplemental income.
Tobacco is going to continue to be an important part of Kentucky's crop
revenues for a few years. I don't think anybody knows exactly what
tobacco's going to do. But regardless of what tobacco or corn or anything
else does, if there is another viable and supplemental crop that's out
there and has potential for the survival of the family farm, let's look at
it. I think that was the governor's idea when he formed the task force.

ACRES U.S.A. Well, given the way politicians get the heeby-jeebies
whenever something even looks like a drug nowadays, how did you convince
the governor that this was a good idea?

HICKEY. Well, the farm that Governor Jones presently lives on was a hemp
farm. His wife's father and grandfather were hemp farmers. His
father-in-law had a history with it. So it wasn't really a surprise to him
when I showed him the paper that came from a mill in Paris, Kentucky which
is 15 or 20 miles from Lexington, we took the hemp fiber from underneath
this machine that is called a carding machine that combed out some of the
hemp fibers. We took some of the hemp fibers that were 50 years old and
brought them to Transylvania University, which is one of the oldest
universities west of the Appalachian Mountains, gave it to a professor
there who makes paper and we made some paper. We showed it to the
Governor, we showed him an Executive Order signed by President Clinton that
listed hemp as a vital or critical material for national security. I
showed him a copy of the English rules and regulations where they had just
allowed their farmers to start producing it. I showed him the European
Community rules and regulations for all of Europe related to the production
of hemp.

ACRES U.S.A. All of this European data was from the recent past, the last
few years?

HICKEY. No. The papers I got -- I know a lot of the countries like
Russia, Hungary and the Ukraine, they've grown it forever, it's part of
their history. But the stuff that I found the rules and regulations to set
up a common organization to regulate it through Europe I think was in 1969.
So I showed him all of that material plus a lot of photos we'd run across,
and basically said that there is a lot of interest going on. I told him
Canada had just given license to some farmers there to start growing it. I
said, "I think it's something that we need to start looking at," and the
Governor said, "I think you're right." He said, "I think we need to at
least give the thing a hearing to see if it is something that's viable."

ACRES U.S.A. What are your hopes for the Kentucky Hemp Cooperative and
what kind of an agricultural / industrial setup would you like to see in
Kentucky over the next decade or so?

HICKEY. It's going to be a two-fold thing for the Kentucky farmers and the
coop. The first part being the present industry that is set and ready and
able to use the fibers that the plant produces, and we've got a number of
those. For the simple fact that hemp is such a bulky crop, hemp cannot be
shipped long distances economically, it's just not feasible, so hemp lends
itself to being manufactured and processed locally. What we see in this
for the coop is rural economics coming back to Kentucky. We see hemp as
something that we call environmentally friendly rural economic development.
We see hemp as adding value to the land because hemp will produce
two-and-a-half to three times what corn will produce on land. It
automatically brings the land value up. If you have a commodity that has
to be processed and manufactured locally, people could stay on the farm and
work within miles of the farms in some of the factories that would be set
up to process hemp materials. Instead, you have children that were living
on the farm who have to go into the big cities to work and make a living.
The U.S. government has a publication about energy and rural devlelopment
for farmers that shows a biomass electric plant. It shows fields all the
way around the plant in the community, and it shows the farmers bringing
biomass into the plant to burn, generating electricity for the local
community. And again hemp, being that it captures and stores the sun's
energy better than any other plant, is probably going to be a commodity
that can be used on the low scale, on the low side of the economic picture
-- it would make an ideal biomass. On the high side it is one of the
highest plants in linoleic acids which are basic, essential building blocks
of the human body. Hemp is a commodity that the farmers could depend on
for rural economic development and we know it's not [a matter of] when
it's going to happen -- we know it's going to happen, it's a matter of how
it's going to happen. Are the big industries going to come in and
marginalize the crop and make the farmers again have to continue to fight
to keep the land, or are the farmers going to organize and band together to
protect their industry? I guess one of my visions is that the coops, once
they're allowed to grow industrial fiber hemp, will do like the steel
industry has done here in Kentucky, the paper industry, the chicken
industry, the automobile industry, that is, apply for financial grants that
will let the coops borrow money to develop a small paper mill or a small
decorticating building.

ACRES U.S.A. It sounds like the crucial questions for you revolve around
whether the hemp farmers will retain some control or be pushed around by
the big industries the way the big industries always push around small
farmers, to put it bluntly.

HICKEY. Right. What we've got to do is organize now in order to
participate in the coming legislation which is going to regulate the
industry.

ACRES U.S.A. When do you expect some legislative action in Kentucky?

HICKEY. Within two years at the most. The big industries are looking at
it. That is going to make this thing go fast.

ACRES U.S.A. What kind of industries have expressed an interest in your
area?

HICKEY. Industries that recycle cardboard. Inland Container has looked at
beet fibers -- to show you some of the extremes that some of the companies
have gone to to look at the different fibers. We gave them some of the
industrial fibers that came from Canada and their only question was, how
much is it going to cost and how fast can we get it? We've got another
company, Masonite, a subsidiary of International Paper, that is presently
doing research on fiberboards and they are working in conjunction with
Washington State University, which has been producing fiberboard from
industrial hemp stalks. Their resulting research has shown that it's a
stronger, more durable board than a board made from wood chips. And then
we've got a polymer scientist that is doing research on the ground-up
hurds, the center part of the plant, turning it into plastics then using
the fibers for a natural fiberglass instead of the glass that they had been
using. He said that the natural hemp fibers are out-producing the glass
fibers two to one and he said the glass fibers cost them a dollar a pound
when they can find them.

ACRES U.S.A. It outperforms fiberglass in terms of insulating value?

HICKEY. Its strength, its tensile strength, warp strength -- when you bend
it it will bend farther. The pull strength of it is better.

ACRES U.S.A. Are you available to advise people who might be interested in
starting a coop in their state in anticipation of this hemp renaissance?

HICKEY. Yes. What we would like to do is [help] anybody that's interested
-- they can contact me at the coop. What we are looking for is to help
revive, not only save, but revive the family farm and the family farm
community. Anybody who is interested in the work that we're doing and
anybody that we can help educate on the way the coop is designed or set up,
we'd be more than glad to help. Also, once we get the different states
with their cooperatives started, we will be looking at [forming] a
coalition of coops. Maybe something that we are looking for would be
called the North American Hemp Cooperatives Association. But that may be
six months down the road. We've got people in California who are
interested in starting a coop, which is probably going to happen within the
next two months. Colorado is getting ready to start a hemp coop.

ACRES U.S.A. They're sprouting like weeds, so to speak?

HICKEY. Right. The interest is out there and it's just a matter of
getting the information out there to the people. If there is anybody that
we can help or be of assistance to, that's why we're here.

ROULAC. There is one great thing that is overlooked, and that is that
today most products that we consume are shipped anywhere from 2,000 to
5,000 miles across the world, from food to fabric. Hemp has the ability to
create products housing, food, textile and plastics, that can be grown,
processed, manufactured and sold within a 50-100 mile radius for many of
the products vs. 2,000 to 5,000 miles.

ACRES U.S.A. You'd obviously agree that it has a great potential for
revitalizing local agricultural economies.

ROULAC. Yes. Everyone likes to say, of course, the big companies are all
going to control this. But because hemp lends itself to regionally based
processing centers that will be spread around hemp growing regions
throughout North America, it will be a boon to community and cottage
businesses.

ACRES U.S.A. John, what part does your group Hemptech play in all this?

ROULAC. At Hemptech, our logo says, "the industrial hemp information
network." Our goal is to publish and distribute information on industrial
hemp and also to help network people with the farming industry and
government communities, developing networks. I get a lot of calls from
organizations from around the world, and we provide a resource directory
and publish and distribute three or four hemp-related publications.

ACRES U.S.A. Is there any organized forum in North America that people
could turn to for networking and support?

ROULAC. There's several. There's the International Hemp Association out
of Holland, which publishes an excellent biannual scientific journal, and a
new organization which has been formed recently called the North American
Industrial Hemp Forum, which has held several meetings comprised of several
Fortune 500 corporations, representatives from farming groups including the
American Farm Bureau, university researchers, farmers, and state
agricultural officials, all of whom are working towards commercializing
industrial hemp in North America. Their goal is to provide a framework for
a political process to move forward on this important issue as fast as
possible. ACRES U.S.A. Any final thoughts?

ROULAC. Yes. I urge all readers who care about this issue to write their
congresspeople and their senators, and ask them what they are doing to help
get this important crop in the ground here in the United States.

John Roulac can be reached at Hemptech c/o Harmonious Technologies,
P.O. Box 1865, Ohai, California 93024, (800) 265-HEMP or fax (805)
646-7404. Joseph Hickey can be reached at the Kentucky Hemp Growers
Cooperative Association, P.O. Box 8395, Lexington, Kentucky 40533 (606)
252-8954. An informative 48 page booklet, Industrial Hemp, published by
Hemptech can be purchased for $5.00 from Acres U.S.A. also, a superb new
full-length book, The Great Book of Hemp, was recently published. It is
available for $20.00, also from Acres U.S.A. Include 10% for shipping and
handling; international customers add 20%, U.S. funds only.



KENTUCKIANS SUPPORT INDUSTRIAL HEMP

Seventy-seven percent of all Kentuckians favor the legalization of
industrial hemp as a cash crop for Kentucky farmers, according to the
Survey Research Center at the University of Kentucky. The coop contracted
with the Survey Research Center to include questions in a recent poll in
order to ascertain current opinions held by Kentucky residents about
Industrial hemp.

Politics, religion, income level, and community location all had no
significant bearing on whether a person would support or oppose the
legalization of industrial hemp. The poll found that the major influence
on a person's opinion was his or her knowledge about industrial hemp. The
GREATER the UNDERSTANDING about the difference between industrial hemp and
marijuana, the MORE likely a person is to FAVOR the legalization of
industrial hemp to be grown only by farmers licensed to do so. The Survey
Research Center advised the coop that education is the key to increasing
support for legislation that would allow Kentucky farmers to grow
industrial hemp.

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