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TURNING HEMP INTO AN INCOME NOW THAT HEMP FARMING HAS BEEN LEGALIZED BY THE 2018 FARM BILL

January 5, 2019 by Paul Edwards Leave a Comment

Hemp is unique in that every part of the plant can be used and it’s extremely easy to grow in every state. In fact, the growing season is so short that farmers can plant hemp after harvesting their other crops. The plants deep roots help create ideal growing conditions for future crops, while its dense foliage chokes out weeds. These attributes make it a perfect cash crop for farmers throughout the United States and around the world.

In the past, hemp was world’s standard fiber with unmatched tensile strength. After removing the fiber-bearing cortex from the rest of the stalk, hemp can be used to make any fiber-based or cellulose-based product. The fiber was used to produce over 5,000 different textile products before prohibition. With recent advances in processing, these end uses could be rapidly expanded to applications like replacing many plastics.

Researchers have taken a growing interest in CBD due to its beneficial influence on the human endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for regulating a variety of physiological and cognitive processes. A growing body of research has found that CBD could help relieve pain, reduce inflammation, reduce anxiety, protect the brain, and even regulate blood sugar levels, making it a potentially valuable alternative to conventional pharmaceuticals.

Here are some of the products that can be sold locally or over the web: hemp paper products, hemp textiles,  course textiles like carpeting, 3D or 4D printing using molded plastics made from hemp, essential oils,  body care products, cosmetics, construction fiberboard, insect repellant, industrial oils,  livestock bedding, dog collars woven out of hemp, and green footwear.

Filed Under: Ways to Earn a Living Tagged With: Hemp

The Answer for America’s Energy Future

January 4, 2019 by Paul Edwards Leave a Comment

The United States can solve its own energy problem now that the productivity of American farmers and entrepreneurs has been unchained by legalizing the growing of hemp in the United States with the Farm Bill of 2018 for the first time since the 1930’s.

Hemp is essentially a weed but it is an exceptional plant because it is easy to grow in all states. Every part of the plants is usable. It can be grown in poor soil not suitable for growing food. It leaches toxins, like heavy metals, uranium, and arsenic from the soil and metabolizes them, revitalizing spoiled lands, as where coal has been mined and gas extracted. The Midwest has more than 11 million acres of poor land not being used for crops.

Hemp has a short growing season, which means it can be harvested 3 times a year. Or it can be planted after other crops, requiring no fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides. It can be used as a rotational crop or planted after other plants are harvested. Because of its deep roots and dense leaves, it chokes out weeds.

Because the hemp plant has so little THC, not enough to get anyone high, the commercial growing of hemp should face fewer regulatory problems from the Food & Drug Administration.

The oil pressed from hemp seed can be converted into biodiesel and fermenting the stalks results in either ethanol or methanol or both. Of all the plant sources of energy that have been tried, hemp is superior to alternatives include algae, Carrizo cane, switchgrass, and food plants like corn, soybeans, olives, peanuts, and rapeseed.

Hemp produces nearly four times as much oil per acre as soybeans, which is currently the only crop grown on a large enough scale for biodiesel in the U.S. and ten times more wood pulp than trees per acre. While hemp has been used and can be used for canvas, rope, and clothing, it can also replace some plastics and its seeds, rich in omega-3 fatty acids vitamin E and minerals like potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and zinc, can be used as food, its unique properties lend themselves to producing energy.

Farmers need to be made aware of the benefits to them of growing hemp. 

A national association, such as the National Hemp Association or Vote Hemp, needs to launch a campaign “Providing America’s Energy Future” to create a favorable climate for farmers to be aware of hemp’s benefit with the assurance they will enjoy long-term markets.  The timing is good as the oil and gas industry’s stock prices are down. A recent article is entitled “Bloodbath in Oil & Gas Stocks Could Continue.”

Critical masses of growers can be organized by county, multi-county or state to help them market their hemp, establish standards and provide a knowledge base for obtaining optimum yields.

Hemp can’t be beat as a cash crop. It turns out to be the most cost-efficient and valuable of all the fuel crops we could grow on a scale that will enable America to become energy independent on a sustainable basis.

Filed Under: The Future Tagged With: Energy, Hemp, switchgrass

About Me

Paul with his wife, Sarah Edwards, are award-winning authors of 17 books with over 2,000,000 books in print.

Paul provides local marketing consulting through the Small Business Development Center. He is co-founder of a new website: DigitalDocumentPros.com.

Prior to becoming an author, I practiced law, served as CEO of a non-profit, and operated a public affairs consulting practice. [Read more...]

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