KIFCURE HAS DEVELOPED THE NORTHERN ILLINOIS HEMP HUB, A PROTOTYPE SHOWING HOW LOCAL FARMS CAN SUPPORT LOCAL HOUSING.
MAPLE PARK, IL The Burke family is proving that American ingenuity still has its roots on the farm. Using hemp fiber, one of America's legacy crops, their company Kifcure is proving how the cannabis plant provides direct economic benefits on a local level. This is a huge breakthrough not only for the hemp industry, but speaks to massive and unprecedented opportunity to empower small towns and demonstrate a model of agribusiness that is not destructive, is sustainable and actually improves the soil.
Jarett and Kelly Burke's NIHH (Northern Illinois Hemp Hub) is already bringing attention and partnerships to Kane County, IL, just outside of Chicago's western suburbs, amidst vast prairies and fields of corn, soybeans and wind power turbines. Small towns and villages across the US will now have an inspiring model of a young family who have capitalized on the hemp fiber value to supply a wide range of industrial markets, starting with building materials. Not only do they farm hundreds of acres of hemp, they also process it into usable fiber that can be used to make hempcrete. To demonstrate this novel material, they are combining the farming and processing with a small house prototype, the first permitted hemp house in Kane County. This is a completely scalable model for the rest of the US.
Unlike other new technologies, hemp fiber is not a patented secret. Rather it's a natural resource that speaks to many of the major issues that we face, related to economics and environment, the basis of what we call "sustainability". The Burkes are promoting the NIHH as a publicly accessible workshop, yet also a private business model that gives them control over the product and direct access to end markets, as they develop, including building materials, plastics, electronics, paper, flooring and textiles. Companies such as BMW, Toyota and Patagonia are more than ready to use hemp fiber for molded auto body parts and clothing, but the supply chain has been hampered by processing bottlenecks. The NIHH is among the first of several similar models in the US.
Visio is honored to represent these new industrial models. The community and culture of hemp is shifting from consumable marijuana and CBD to fiber. The excitement in the community is tangible, because hemp is tangible. We increasingly are affected by a virtual and often insane culture of "media". The reality of hemp fiber, an extremely versatile and durable material offers a chance to get back to our roots in America as family farmers, empowered by a crop that's been outlawed for many years.