Happy Earth Day
Industrial Hemp: A Tribute to Earth Day Energy. Fuel. Food…all are becoming more expensive. One crop has great potential as a solution to some of our climbing costs and declining natural environments, but only if it’s made legal again. During my Master Gardner classes last fall, we inevitably talked about crops — which species are best for which soils, how to rotate crops to prevent nutrient depletion, which species produce the most output for the least energy input, etc. During these discussions, the overall benefit of one plant in particular stood out to me: cannabis. Industrial hemp, ( cannabis sativa ), has more than 25,000 uses, from textiles to birdseed to health and beauty products. However, in the United States, hemp is illegal to grow, even though our founding fathers grew it and drafted our Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. The reasons hemp is illegal are…