CANADA, AUSTRALIA and EUROPE ARE MOVING THE NEEDLE ON HEMP, WHILE US POLICY SEEMS TO BE WATCH AND WAIT.
Native American and Black Rural Communities Poised to Take Industry Ownership
When the Wright brothers invented the airplane, it was several years before they sold a plane, and it was only when the US military realized the great value of dropping bombs for the upcoming war. The automobile worked, but it took Henry Ford to see that it was a new kind of factory that was needed. When Steve Jobs and Bill Gates invented personal computing, they also floundered for years, young "nerds" taking on IBM no less, pretty ridiculous when you think about it.
Hemp is yet another industrial milestone, except that it's not a technology, just a plant or natural resource which has been needlessly locked away for some decades for political reasons by the government. Now that same government decided that there is more value than risk and in 2018 opened up the US hemp industry. But other than allowing it to happen, there's been almost zero leadership from the USDA or varoius universities who claim to have some scientific knowledge, but what they really want is research funding. More study, more research. So where's the money, that's what is needed.
In 2019 the USDA could have easily set up a $30 billion hemp industry finance and information task force, which would have enable farmers and the corporate markets to get together, with investment in decorticating facilities and sweet loan deals. Only 80-some years ago, the US did this for WWII's Hemp for Victory campaign, again when the military demands it, the money flows, if killing people is involved. But today, there are no generals demanding hemp for ropes and duffle bags. So things are kind of slow today in the hemp world, even as major investors around the world are getting into all manner of sustainable bio-products and technologies, of which hemp is a shining star of commodities. Yet, outside of the hemp world, who is aware of the possibilities?
What's needed is public campaigns to showcase hemp, live and in person, for rural communities who will most benefit. This is why minority groups, black and native in America are pushing to establish a leading role to define and take ownership of the emerging industry, and so far it looks like the best support for that will come from outside the US.
Australia, Canada and Europe have so much going on with hemp innovation, it's hard to keep track. They are also waiting for the US to take the lead, because just one product of industrial hemp that takes off in the US will transform the global hemp industry, and it could happen quickly. Take hemp block for example.
The construction materials industry is likely the earliest big adopter of hemp because there literally almost no barriers to entry. Only a few stupid laws are hindering it here and there, but there is movement among the US Hemp Builders Association and some native tribes showing results from a new approach to house building, long overdue, and how it can impact the housing crisis and help revitalize small towns, when cities are too big already. Take the Lower Sioux tribe in Minnesota, for example and their work with hempcrete.
Hempcrete is already up and running in the US, so the construction industry has great potential for buy-in because it costs almost nothing. You add lime and water to hemp hurd, that's mostly it. The hurd, you have to buy it from out of state, unless you happen to have a local decorticating facility and your own hemp crop. But there are enough hurd producers looking to support this that progress is inevitable. When local developers, investors and economic agencies start to realize this, that will trigger something big. We are close to that.
Hempcrete, however is more for insulation and forming wall mass, not for structural purposes. Hemp block is another story, it is a load-bearing product . Australia's Hemp Block company, for my money, will be the breakout for the global hemp industry, when they hit the ground in the USA. It sounds like it's going to happen. One success will spark a rush on everything hemp, it just takes that first model.
Back to the housing crisis. How will hemp help with that? What we call the housing crisis relates to affordability, urban density and other socio-economic factors. But the tiny house movement and the way that homeless people and nomadic retirees are able to show innovation on the meaning of housing for survival purposes. This is in contrast to the rest of us, who dream of a dream house, white picket fence, walk-in closets, granite countertops, and 5000 square feet for 4 people. There'se your housing crisis.
I am all in favor of the Indians and southern black communities taking ownership of hemp and reinventing American communities with hemp, and it will be quite fitting if their best partners end up being the white folks in Australia, Canada and Europe.
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