by Laurie Avocado

Hemp and marijuana have been so closely related and even referred to interchangeably for so long that the cousins have become a nuisance to each other.  For hemp advocates any association with marijuana activists is the kiss of death.  State level attempts to legalize industrial hemp have been killed when lobbyists were discovered to have connections across the cannabis isle.

The key distinguishing characteristic between hemp and marijuana, both from the genus and species cannabis sativa L., is the percentage of THC, the psychoactive ingredient.  The generally accepted requirement for industrial hemp is 1% THC or less while marijuana contains at least 3% and sometimes 15% or higher.

Due to the diverse interests coming together to legalize cannabis and the stiff resistance of the Drug Enforcement Agency legalization has been stilted at best.  One side of the isle is populated with long-time hippy activists fighting for the legalization of the plant for all uses.  The other side of the pro-cannabis isle consists of denim wearing farmers and suit wearing entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.  Despite the two sides’ common goal of legalizing cannabis they have not come together often, and the fight has been waged on separate playing fields against an opponent which has been winning both wars, the DEA.

Surprisingly, the successes medicinal marijuana has accomplished over the last several years have not helped hemp advocates in the least.  Some would argue that marijuana’s progress has served as a setback to hemp.  One example can be found with the current Industrial Hemp Farm Act bill brought before Congress by Ron Paul and Barney Frank.  This is the fifth straight year the bill has been brought forward.  Currently it is bogged down in the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security.  The agricultural crop of industrial hemp just can’t shake its shady relations with marijuana.

The phrase “legalize it” still represents two critically different battles differentiated by the colorful slogan, “Rope vs. Dope.”  One side argues that marijuana is harmless while the other tries to prove that hemp is not marijuana after all.  For now the two groups continue to relate uneasily and try to avoid stepping on each other’s toes.

Brigham Young first gave the challenge to the Mormon people in 1847 to spread out through the area and see which key crops the church could maintain and grow in the arid climate.  The Saints tried cotton, flax, corn, wool, hemp and even a brief experiment in silk.  Hemp was reported to have grown best in the southeast and the Wasatch Valley.

It doesn’t appear that the Utah Saints grew great amounts of hemp and the experiment had certainly ended by the time the tax act of 1937 was issued.  None the less it was proven that hemp could compete with most crops in Utah and even succeed above and beyond some staples.  Ironic and sad that the United States eventually outlawed a crop and material that even the Nation of Deseret valued.  One hundred and fifty years later we are finally celebrating Hemp History Week in an effort to bring the crop back.  Visit Vote Hemp for more info.

I don’t know about you, but I would like to know more about the genius behind the modern hemp movement.  Besides I have questions like, “Why is noone currently following through with or continuing to build on Osburn’s work from 17 years ago?”  And more importantly, “What the frick happened to this guy?” (He is apparently a guy.)  Well, this is what I have found so far.

Lynn and his wife Judy were living on their ranch in Ventura, California.  (Is the suspense building yet?)  Well, on September 28th, 2001 they got busted by the DEA for growing 270 marijuana plants that the state of California had declared legal for the use of the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, a medicinal marijuana co-op.  The crop was for the treatment of some 960 registered patients.

Eventually they were let of, but then busted again a year later for a smaller crop.  This time Judy was sentenced to a year of probation while Lynn was sentenced to a year in prison for a gun charge.  This was in April of 2004.  Lynn would have been released in 2005, but the trail runs cold here.  If anyone else knows what happened to Lynn Osburn I would appreciate a tip.

To an extent this satisfies me.  It makes sense that Lynn Osburn would not be publishing research on hemp while in prison or under fire from the DEA.  But who was this guy before the bust?  What sort of degree or background led him into hemp research?  What was he doing between 1993 and 2001?  And most importantly, why is everyone so willing to quote his 17 year old papers as the truth about hemp, while no current researchers seem to be following up on and continuing his work?  I want his stuff to be true, but that doesn’t make him anything more than a dreamer like me.

It seems, after many years of difficult struggle, groups such as the Hemp Industries Association and Vote Hemp might finally be gathering the momentum to bring hemp back into the mainstream of American society.  These two organizations are teaming up this Spring to bring us Hemp History Week, May 17th-23rd.  This is not the same thing as, “Smoke a Doobie, Attention Deficit Day,” or “Bake a Ganja Brownie for your Favorite Earth Sprite Day.”

These organizations, and many others around the U.S. are serious about issues of sustainability AND economy.  Hemp is a versatile crop, adept at growing in many climates and soil types.  Hemp has a growing market in more than a dozen areas of the “green” economy that Obama and others so often stress the importance of.  These areas include the building sector, energy sector, food sector, textile sector and whatever you want to refer to fabrication and containers/plastics, etc. as.

The more the American public learns about the history of Hemp in the U.S. the more crystal clear its future will become.  For that reason alone, this event in May is an important one.  The main thrust of the awareness week will consist of local events sponsored and put on by volunteers at the grassroots level.  It is hoped that these events will garner at least 50,000 signed post cards urging President Obama and Attorney General Holder to allow American farmers to grow industrial hemp.  You can click here in order to sign up as a volunteer to make sure your hometown has an event to celebrate Hemp History Week and be a part of demanding hemp be made a part of our future as well.

This summer, Reburbia, a suburban design competition, was held by Inhabitat and Dwell Magazine. The competition set out to gather creative and imaginative ideas on how to go about re-visioning the American suburban sprawl that will almost certainly become our suburban wasteland without intervention. Several of the ideas were great, but one in particular caught my eye.

Forrest Fulton designed Big Box Agriculture: A Productive Suburb. In his design he advocates for transforming abandoned big box stores into suburban farms and markets, and I think it is a tremendous idea. Within three miles of my house right now (and I live close to downtown Salt Lake City) there stands an empty big box store that used to be a CompUSA. Yeah. Remember buying that flash drive there last Black Friday as they were going out of business? Well the building is still there. Currently there is a Halloween business pumping plastic jack-o-lanterns and pregnant Brittany Spears costumes into the soon to be saturated October holiday madness. But they will be gone again in another month. The location is perfect. Less than a mile to the East is a long stretch of solid neighborhood. A little further to the West and you will find the same. Right next to the Costco and Sam’s Club there could be a blacktop farm and market.

Fulton’s idea would use the old CompUSA building as a greenhouse and restaurant by replacing most of the roof with glass and the rest with more crops. One could easily imagine a small market to find fresh produce or where one could wash and wrap the harvest one’s self. By keeping the blacktop parking lot and using containers for the farming the urban/suburban farm could maintain flexibility and easy customer access. In a place like salt lake the greenhouse space would prove invaluable as well. Winter roles around and all the plants that need to come inside have a place to stay.

The two problems that I just can’t shake are crime and parking. Ironic that you can’t just plow up all the parking lots in the world to plant crops even though most of these parking lots were farmland not so long ago. I don’t know about the location of most big box stores, but the old CompUSA isn’t in what you would call a walkable neighborhood. And I don’t think Costco is going to like people using their parking lot/derby arena for parking their John Deere. Could an operation like this maintain a shuttle with off-site parking? Is it ridiculous to consider an underground parking garage? Yeah, probably.

The second problem would appear to be crime. I guess you could always put up a ten foot cyclone fence around the whole farm, but that tends to take some of the community feeling out of the friendly local market. I don’t know, maybe there aren’t that many thugs who need to make a tomato-plant-peace-offering to their old lady for shooting out the television. Then again, my church had its freshly planted perennials yanked out just a few months ago.

One last thought to ponder would be the profitability of an operation like this. Urban and suburban property is still pretty pricy in most cities. Can dense, container farming pay the bills? I know I would like to see someone in SLC give it a try in the old building where CompUSA gave up the ghost.

Rico Locals has opened up on 800 S. and 500 E., SLC.  The founding vendors include empanadas, cheese, beef, a goat dairy, eggs, lamb, and Rico Brand mexican stuffs.  Not too shabby.  And I have to say that I really hope this sort of Urban farming and cooperative trend takes off.  I sometimes wake in a cold sweat thinking about small, artisan farms being gobbled up by large, industrialized tenant farming outfits.  I just don’t think that anyone can care better for the sustainability of farm lands than a small generational farm supported by local customers and a local market.

I can understand the thinking in globalizing agriculture, most of the time.  But we have simply spent too long shirking the cost onto nature and the poor migrant worker.  Could we do any worse by giving artisan farming a chance?  Would it hurt us to know what is in our food and where it comes from?  Would it be a bad thing to know the farmer by name even?  Is it possibly worth the extra dollar per bushel of whatnot in order to pay less on health costs in the future?  Is it smart to build cities in deserts too large to sustain themselves without getting the majority of their imports from hundreds of miles around?  Or should we just live somewhere else?

Salt Lake City is already where it is.  Probably not even water limitations will stop its growth.  The economy here in the high-plains desert is actually still strong.  The least we can do is start supporting the few individuals who are making a real effort to grow and eat local, and help the rest of us do the same.  One less trip to Cafe Rio or Chili’s and I could easily afford to buy my products from small, local suppliers and farmers.  Maybe then I wouldn’t be starting to lose my trim college waistline sitting her typing at my desk all day.

How many gardens out there end up being weed factories full of overripe and splitting produce, sipping on wasted water and allowing moisture to evaporate away into the ether?  In other words, are most of us into gardening more in spirit than in actuality?  And if so, do the spiritual benefits of readjusting our Chi with a spade in our hand really worth the waste of time, energy, soil nutrients and water?

Let’s look at some plus and minuses.

Plus: Even when I forget to check my peas in the back yard, the quail never do.  Minus: but then they eat all my grapes, and this really pisses me off.

Plus: I had homegrown radishes for lunch today.  Minus: the saved me like fifteen cents, maybe.

Plus: Gardening gets my wife outside and more often than not, in good spirits.  Minus:  this gets me outside with noisy, rented equipment like tillers.  (And this year it took me a while just to find a freaking post-driver.  Seriously, sometimes living in the city sucks.)

Plus: I have less yard than I used to.  Minus:  I still have a yard.  (Oh wait.  I guess this isn’t my garden’s fault.)  Plus:  I use less water on my garden than on my yard, and I can usually get my wife to weed the garden while I have to mow the lawn.  I do have some dwarf peach and nectarine tress that actually make fruit that gets mostly eaten by us.

So, I guess over all I would still prefer garden to lawn.  But, much of our attempts to garden end in fruitlessness and waste.  And I suspect that my wife and I might be better than many urban gardeners out there.  I think the solution lies in community development and neighborhood gardening efforts.  If our neighbors all tore out their strips as well, and we organized dates throughout each month in the spring and summer to tend the neigborhood strip garden, not only would the results be probably ten-fold, but the rewards would extend well beyond having salad grown on your own block.

This sort of neighborhood garden could provide sustainable community along with local produce which is good for our bodies and our planet.  Maybe then the quail would leave my wine-making grapes alone.

Many may disagree about whether the earth is in the midst of a food crisis or overall shortage.  If we all played nice, mabye everyone could have enough (fat chance).  We do know that in the U.S. we are losing farms, farmers and farm land.  But, there is much less disagreement that we suffer globally from a food distribution crisis.  Certainly portions of the earth surface lack sufficient food stuffs to feed the people that live there.  And seeing how lack of vital resources like food can cause mayhem and destruction of life that ultimately reaches even us lazy Americans on our couches, we should probably care that others lack food.  Enter hemp, stage right.

There are a lot of crazy stats out there and I will try to only through the most pertinent ones at you for the moment.  Hemp can be eaten as an oil, a cake or meal, as a nut (a hulled seed) and as a whole seed.  But it is the seed that has the most nutritional value.  The seed is often 25% to 35% oil and this oil is where the EFA’s come into play.  Hemp seed oil is such a good source of these non trans-fatty acids that it is comparable to fish.  And apparently, hemp nut is the only food on earth that has every EFA.  This is important because it is estimated that 90% of Americans don’t get enough EFA’s in their diet.

The second key element of nutrient for hemp is protein.  Hemp’s protein percentage of 25% to 35% approaches soy witch registers usually around 35%.  Hemp also has a great balance of amino acids and is closer to the more “complete” sources of protein such as meat and dairy than any other nut or grain.   But the key is that hemp’s proteins are 65% something called “edestin.”  This protein is much more easy to digest than the protein found in soy.  Thus less intestinal cramping and night time sessions of the squirts after an evening of veggie burger debauchery.  Praise the Lord.

But wait!  That’s not all.  Hemp contains 35% of our necessary dietary fiber, higher than all commercial grains.  And when you combine hemp’s source of fiber, protein, amino acids, and essential fatty acids it is feasible that man could live off of hemp alone.  Crazy.  Man does not live off of bread alone, unless that bread is made from hemp.  So, it seems clear that hemp could not only play a huge role in increasing health at home, but it could be essential in areas that lack the necessary nutrition to survive.

But that doesn’t make it right.  I am in the process of trying to cut my steady dependance on the stuff even thought I come from a family of cotton farmers (on the one side.  But don’t worry, we’ve moved on to petroleum products for our fortune.  Oh crap!  That’s tomorrow’s blog.)Anywho… industry momentum is pretty much the only reason left that we make all of our clothing from cotton or synthetics instead of natural and sustainable fibers like hemp.  With some consumer ethics kicked into high gear we can change that pretty quickly.  Hemp easily has the advantage on cotton when it comes to warmth, absorbency, durability and tensile strength.  Hemp also breaths better and wicks away moisture better.  The long standing disadvantages have been the scalability of the crop and the softness or fineness of the fiber count.  The latter of these issues has been addressed by Crailar (and probably others).  The former will only be addressed once the consumer tide changes and producers scale up to match.

HT Naturals claims that even by blending cotton and hemp you can save 744 gallons of water on a single t-shirt.  So, to sum up — hemp good, cotton evil.  Oh, but you might be saying, “what about organic cotton, chump?”  Well, some say potato, some say potato. (Hmmm.  Kinda’ loses its effect when typed.)  Fine.  It’s organic.  That deals away with the pesticide problem (cotton uses 50% of all pesticides in U.S. even though it is around 2% of total cropland).  But, organic cotton is still cotton.  It still damages the soil, uses crazy amounts of water to grow and process and now you aren’t even getting a half to a third of the crop per acre that you would with hemp (because you have gone organic).  Organic cotton is kinda’ like driving a Prius.  (Oh, snap!  I said it.)  The label looks nice if someone reads it, but it is a stop gap effort at best.

So, cotton has been king for long enough.  It has been a good ride.  What with slavery and all, depleting most of the soil in the Southern United States, and poisoning our environment so that Southerners are all sterile and/or impotent, it’s been fun.  But it is time to give hemp a run.

Farmers have had a rough row to hoe for a while now, and unfortunately the economic downturn is not helping them.  Another 90,000 farmers are expected to sell the farm during the next decade at a time when we need to be producing more food than ever.  Many are promoting new genetically altered and engineered crops and larger industrialized farm conglomerates as the answer to step up the world’s food supplies.  Pardon my lack of French, but this seems like a dumbass solution to me.  Past attempts to step up industrialized farming without appropriate wisdom and sense has lead to such smash hits as “Welcome to the Dust Bowl.”As a partial libertarian the waters can get dicy for me when talking about economic forces, but in this instance I think it is a matter of leveling the playing field to not be against the small farmer.  Corporate greed has the bull by the horns and Congress is all too ready to cut off it’s nuts.  We have established for decades now that large faceless entities care less for the land than small, local farmers do.  In a time of such carbon awareness, small farms are even more critical.  Citizens of our major urban areas need to know the faces behind the fruit (and vegetables and meat and milk).

The future of farming must rely on a growing army of morally conscious, small, specialized farmers if we are to seek agriculture sustainability in the U.S.  To succeed these farmers will have to charge more for their product.  For consumers to afford this, middle men must be cut.  Community Supported Agriculture is growing all around the nation, and this is a good start.

For our cities to survive farming communities need to be encouraged and supported by property zoning changes in order to prevent urban fringe lands from being used entirely for residential suburbs.  These lands need to be zoned for small 5 to 10 acre farms with cooperative farmers markets and processing facilities built in.  Current farming land needs to be preserved.  Water use needs to be regulated by preventing growth of inappropriate crops (say corn or alfalfa in a near desert).  Or at the very least incentives need to be offered for growing water miserly crops in water starved areas.

What about my recent rants about hemp?  Well, thanks for asking.  This is where crops like hemp can make a difference.  If the U.S. government were to step aside (as it sorta’ is in a few areas) and allow farmers to grow hemp these farmers would have one more tool in the arsenal that would help them survive.  Hemp is a great rotational crop which helps the soil recover from intensive crops like corn and cotton.  Even if the hemp was to be tilled under and used for no other purpose the farmer would increase his profits through the benefit to his other crops.

Hemp can be grown with less water than most other crops in the U.S.  Hemp has multiple uses for differing qualities of crop.  Facilities are open across the border in Canada for processing hemp for feed and fiberboard and other rough uses.  Hemp could also contribute to the growing agricultural tourism industry (vineyards, wineries, educational farms, etc.) by allowing the sale of home made hemp products on the farm.  Besides, every Simpson’s fan knows that a little tamacco never hurt business.  Maybe it is time for farmers to be allowed to grow some Hemato too.