Super Crop Hemp: A sustainable crop and its uses you need to know about!

The use of hemp dates back to the stone age, with hemp fibre imprints found in 10,000 year old pottery shards in China.

In the last decade, hemp has appeared in the public eye as a crop for the future. New technologies stimulate this change which makes it suitable for industrial paper manufacturing. Hemp derivatives also can also provide renewable energy (biofuel), as they often act as a replacement for petrochemical products.

There are over 25,000 plus uses for this plant. Listed below are some of these uses-

Housing

70% of the cannabis plant’s total weight consists of the “hurd” or woody inner core. This part of the plant is THC free and is used in housing construction. The silica leached from the soil by the plant combined with unslaked lime forms a chemical bond similar to cement which is fire and waterproof, Cannabis Homes.

Food

People grow hemp for food also but in the UK and other EU countries, cultivation licenses are not available. Within Defra (the UK’s department for environment, food and rural affairs) it is treated as purely a non-food crop. Despite the fact that seed can and does appear on the UK market as a perfectly legal food product. Both the complete protein and the oils contained in hemp seeds (rich in lanolin and linolenic acids) are in ideal ratios for human nutrition.

Fibre

  Until its discovery in the 1980s, the use of hemp for fibre production had declined sharply over the past decades, but the crop still occupied an important place amongst natural fibres as it is strong, durable and unaffected by water. The main uses of its fibres were for ropes, sacking, carpets, nets and webbing. A hemp clothing industry was reborn in the west in 1988. Today, many Indian companies also offer a range of hemp apparel which is comfortable and eco-friendly.

Paper

The paper manufacturing industries are also utilizing this crop in increasing quantities. The cellulose content is about 70%. Hemp paper is a paper variety consisting exclusively or to a large extent of pulp obtained from fibres of the plant. The products are mainly speciality papers such as cigarette paper, banknotes and technical filter papers. Compared to wood pulp, hemp pulp offers a four to five times longer fibre, a significantly lower lignin fraction as well as higher tear resistance and tensile strength. However, production costs are about four times higher than for paper from wood, since the infrastructure for using hemp is underdeveloped.

 Jewellery

 Hemp jewellery is the product of knotting the twine through the practice of macramé. This kind of jewellery includes bracelets, necklaces, anklets, rings, watches, and other adornments. Some jewellery features beads made from crystals, glass, stone, wood and bones. The twine varies in thickness and comes in a variety of colours. Artisans use many different stitches to create jewellery, however, the half knot and full knot stitches are most common.