According to Greenpeace, there’s been an alarming decline in bee populations since the 1990s. The main causes seem to be bee-killing pesticides often used for industrial agriculture. Though there’s lots of speculation on how to solve the issue, a recent study has found that hemp might offer a prominent source of pollen for bees.

Colton O’Brien, an entomology student at Colorado State University’s Graduate School, got involved with two experimental hemp plots. O’Brien was lucky enough to have access to the fields during the first year’s experiments as they were originally kept in secret.

He recalled the first time he stepped onto the university’s hemp fields, he became overwhelmed by “lots and lots of buzzing.”

STUDYING BEES AND HEMP

A lightbulb struck within O’Brien as he became aware that bees were using hemp, that they “find it attractive.” What O’Brien wanted to know was how hemp fields contributed to the ecosystems of these bees.

“I had asked if I could set up a couple of traps while [the hemp] was in full bloom,” O’Brien tells us, in regards to the second year of these experimental plots. “And I happened to know a couple of folks in the hemp lab and they said sure.”

Since O’Brien works out of a Pollination Biology lab at his university, his main interest for these traps was finding out what bees are attracted to the pollen given off by hemp.

With the traps, they were able to confirm that the bees were collecting pollen from hemp. This is vital as it’s been determined without pollinators like bees, much of the world’s food supply is at risk. In fact, without bees pollinating in general, about one-third of the food we know today would vanish.

THESE BEES LOVE HEMP: 23 OF 66 COLORADO BEE SPECIES ATTRACTED TO HEMP

Colorado is home to 66 unique bee species. O’Brien found that 23 of these 66 gravitated towards the hemp fields and fell into his trap. Though he can’t be certain, O’Brien believes these are the first experiments studying bees within a cannabis field.

“We found bees not only utilizing the pollen, but we also found parasites of certain bees,” O’Brien explains. “Like parasites of digger bees and sunflower bees. And even though they might not have been taken pollen directly from hemp, they were utilizing what the other bees were bringing in.”

O’Brien makes it clear he believes the hemp fields created “the dynamics of an ecosystem” which might not have existed without the cannabis plant.

There still isn’t enough research to be certain as to what hemp pollen does for bees. For example, we don’t yet know whether hemp pollen will be a good source of nutrients to bee larva. All O’Brien can confirm is there weren’t many other plants within the area of these hemp plots producing pollen.

BEES LOVE HEMP, BUT RESEARCH IS JUST BEGINNING

Upon reaching out to O’Brien, he informed us his manuscript was still undergoing a review process. Due to this, he wasn’t able to share all the results he believes he may have found. However, he also admits this was a very baseline experiment.

“I think there’s a lot of questions that have opened up from this. Like, what is potentially the nutritional value of hemp pollen to bees? I understand hemp only contains 0.3% THC, but how does that affect a tiny, tiny organism? Is it the same standard?”

The cannabis plant contains dozens of naturally occurring compounds, or cannabinoids, many of which seem to have distinct effects on humans (and potentially bees as well).

Starting with these questions, O’Brien hopes to conduct more studies on the matter during the 2019 cultivation season. He also hopes that crop scientists creating pest-control strategies for hemp will keep the safety of bees in mind.

With all this in mind, it’s clear there’s still a lot to learn about hemp and its potential environmental benefits.

The post Bees Love Hemp : 23 Species Of Bees Attracted To Colorado Hemp appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

In episode 63 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, our host Matt Baum talks about biodegradable hemp plastic with Carolyn Virostek, a distributor for Exhemplarylife.com.

Carolyn talks about the benefits of biodegradable hemp plastic vs other plastics. Some plastics that creators claim are more environmentally friendly actually break down into microplastics. The conversation covers single-use plastics like the hemp straws and how hemp and other plants like flax can be used for much more than making smoothies. Matt also mentions this Stanford University report on plastic straws at the beginning of the episode.

About Exhemplary Life

Exhemplary Life was created out of a desire to advocate for hemp and products made from this indigenous plant. The hemp flowers, seeds, and stalks can make many products such as clothing, shoes, accessories made with Hemp fibers for more natural and eco-friendly products. The oils of the plant can be used for food and extracts as a huge health benefit of our bodies Endocannabinoid System.

Part of the advocacy is in educating people about the needs and health benefits of hemp products as well as its eco-friendly sustainability. While educating people about the benefits of hemp people would ask us where they could get quality hemp products. Their plan is to provide more products made from hemp as the industry develops new items. Since the U.S. has finally made hemp legal to grow and cultivate we will see more and more hemp goods being made available. At first, they’ve focused on providing high-quality clothing, salves, lotions, extracts, oils and foods with more products added over time.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

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Hemp Straws And The Sustainability Of Hemp: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 63 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “Hemp Straws And The Sustainability Of Hemp”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education. Welcome back to the Ministry of Hemp podcast. And I know we’ve been talking about hemp plastic a lot on the show, but there’s been a lot coming out about hemp plastic, and bio-plastics, that’s really exciting, today on the show we’re going to talk about some new completely biodegradable hemp plastics that are out there that hopefully are going to take the place of a lot of single use plastics on the market right now. But before we get to that, let’s talk about straws for a second.

Matt Baum:
Did you know that almost 500 million straws are used a day in the United States, and of those 500 million I’m going to say close to a 100% only get used once and then thrown away. Now this plastic finds its way into the ocean, into our landfills all over the place. And it’s not good for you. It’s not good for animals. It’s not good for the planet. It’s not good for anyone.

Matt Baum:
And while 500 million straws can sound like a crazy, huge number. And it is, that makes up for less than 1% of plastic pollution, which is sheer insanity. This information is coming from an article from stanford.edu, and I’ll have a link to it in the show notes, but it blows my mind. Now the good news is, there are States like Washington that have banned plastic straws. McDonald’s is moving away from plastic straws, Starbucks also did the same thing this year, and look, I don’t think paper straws are the answer either because they’re awful.

Matt Baum:
They just melt, and cutting down trees to make paper straws is not an answer. Now, there are people out there making a completely biodegradable hemp plastic. And today we start off talking about straws. My conversation today is with, Carolyn Virostek. She’s the distributor for exhemplarylife.com, who deals in all cool hemp products, including hemp straws.

Matt Baum:
And we just happen to give some away on our Instagram and at the end of the show, stay tuned because I get to reveal the winners on the end of the show. Super fun. Right? And I’m going to have a coupon code for you guys for 25% off your purchase at exhemplarylife.com. So, stay tuned for the end of the show for all of that, but first here’s my conversation with Carolyn about hemp plastic, hemp straws, and how we can make a more responsible and biodegradable plant-based plastic.

Hemp straws and the problem of plastic pollution

Matt Baum:
Carolyn, before we get into it, we’re going to talk about, I don’t even know what to call it quite honestly. You sent me these straws, and I looked at them and I said, “These look like plastic. They feel like plastic, when I drink out of them it feels like plastic in my mouth, but it’s not plastic. What am I holding here? What did I drink through the other day?”

Carolyn Virostek:
They absolutely do look like plastic. They feel like it, they don’t hold up as long as plastic, which is what the purpose of them is, because we don’t want them to last a 100-1000 years, our environment and our animals don’t need that. They are hemp-based product made out of hemp biomass. And then, we have two other products that we don’t actually divulge it’s proprietary, but none of it is PLA, which is something that a lot of plastics end up using if they’re trying to be compostable or biodegradable.

Carolyn Virostek:
Especially in the hemp industry, or really in a lot of the plastic industry where they’re trying to come up with alternative to fossil fuel plastics. They will use PLAs, sometimes a PHA, but the PLAs are the biggest ones, which, I don’t want to sound like I’m negative against PLAs, they’re great because they are a plant base, but they still have their issues with how they break down, how they need to be composted and broken down in the right environment.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, real quick, can I ask you, what is a PLA? I have no idea, or a PLH? No clue.

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s an organic based polylactic acid, that is used as a binder within plastics as we call them. And plastic really is a term really basically, of anything that has the malleability that we can use in different products where it’s going to hold up under different circumstances. We have hard plastic, soft plastic, et cetera, but PLA is going to be an organic compound that is used as a binding agent.

Matt Baum:
Same with PLH?

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. A lot of times it’s made out of corn starch, sugar cane, and now they’re even starting to make it out of other products too, even coconut shells. So PLAs can be made from many different products.

Matt Baum:
But in these PLA products, they still have plastic in them. They’re still petroleum-based plastics that these are incorporated into?

Carolyn Virostek:
No. That’s the difference, PLAs won’t have the petroleum base. It is an advantage to use the PLAs, because we’re not using the petroleum-base, because that’s a completely different animal. And that’s what we’re trying to get away from, because petroleum-based takes so much more energy to produce, actually just to extract from the earth, to refine it and then produce it.

Carolyn Virostek:
That in itself is toxic to the environment as well as the actual product. And then what do you do with that product when you’re done with it? After drinking that water bottle that you just had for maybe an hour, what are you going to do with it? And what’s going to happen to it? Or you throw it in the garbage and it’s there for 1000 years.

Matt Baum:
Right. Aliens, discover it after human society has been wiped from the earth and go, “Well, I wonder what they did with this trash.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. Why did they make these? What’s this purposed for? It really does make you think about, “Well, do we really need all these plastics all the time? And how long is it going to be in our environment?” And we’re finding that it’s not good, that we are finding huge portions of it on islands where humans have not even inhabited, but here these plastics are washing up on shores.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. And like rafts of plastic that gather in the middle of the ocean and stuff, it’s insane, it’s absolutely insane.

Carolyn Virostek:
It is. And we just keep making more and more plastic, because the oil industry puts a lot of money into it and they want to keep it going.

Matt Baum:
It’s cheap too. So why not?

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s very cheap according to them. Now that brings into another conversation I have, we can say, “Yeah, it’s cheap, plastics are cheap.” And that’s the comparison between our straws, is that, our straws are more expensive than plastic. And that’s one of the issues that people have with it. And my comment as well, “You can either pay for it now, or you can pay for it later.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Because when you use plastics that are oil-based, first of all, you do pay for it. In that you’re extracting a finite material from the earth. We can’t make more of that. Whereas hemp, we can grow it every couple of months, every few months we’ve got a whole new crop.

Matt Baum:
Exactly.

Carolyn Virostek:
And it also is great for the environment. We’re not causing more toxicity by growing hemp, whereas oil, how it’s even processed and refined that takes toxicity, puts toxic waste into the environment. So right then and there, we do want to look at the cost to the environment, just in bringing it to the market. And then when we have a product just like in plastics, in our bottles or our hemp straws, one, we find it out in the rivers or out in the creeks or wherever we are.

Matt Baum:
Or in the bellies of dead animals even.

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly, in the ocean, and then we’re losing animals because they’re eating it. It goes back to where we find the material, we have to go and get it. You’ve got to bring it in from the trash that it is, the pollution that it is. Then we have to find a way to process it. Process it into a new material to make something new.

Carolyn Virostek:
If we do that, a lot of times, many countries still burn all their plastics. So we’re increasing the toxic waste into the environment by burning it. But for them, it’s a lot easier to be able to just burn it than to actually process it into something new.

Matt Baum:
It’s cheap, right?

Carolyn Virostek:
That’s what they say, it’s cheap.

Matt Baum:
You can put those blinders on and just say, “Well, yeah, but it’s less expensive, and it does the job. And I don’t have to think about it when it gets thrown away.” But that’s not the case. Just like you said, we are pulling oil out of the earth. We are then doing something toxic to the environment to create this plastic straw that you use one time, you literally use one time and then you throw it away. And then the earth pays for it for 1000 damn years.

The problem with PLAs

Matt Baum:
We know we’re trying to get away from that, and PLH is a step better, but it’s not as good as what’s being used in these hemp straws. Now, what is the difference? You said PLH, doesn’t quite break down the same basically. It’s less durable, or it’s more durable, before we get into what’s in the hemp straws, What is the problem with PLAs?

Carolyn Virostek:
The problem with that is, and even some chemists are still debating on what it is, as far as, are PLAs biodegradable, or are they just degradable?

Matt Baum:
So we don’t even know?

Carolyn:
There’s debate, you can get one scientist. “Well, no, it’s absolutely biodegradable.” And another one will go, “It breaks down, but it’s not really biodegradable.” If we even look at that, if I can just come up with a biodegradable versus compostable, that’s the other thing, if something is deemed certified compostable, it’s also biodegradable, but something that’s biodegradable is not compostable.

Matt Baum:
Yes. Not all things that are biodegradable are compostable, but all things that are compostable are biodegradable?

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. And with the PLAs, they do debate on that. And we can say it does degrade, but it just takes longer. So PLAs can biodegrade in, as I’ve seen it as short as four years, but the average is about 80 years. So again, it will break down and it doesn’t have the toxic residue that an oil-based plastic will, if it were to break down, but it still has a cost to the environment, because these PLAs as a plastic, quote-unquote, “Break down into smaller finer materials, which then become microplastics.”

Carolyn Virostek:
And those microplastics are what we’re finding in the billions in the oceans and our creeks, and even in the glaciers, and even at the top of the mountains where it’s actually raining and snowing down in those particles, they’re such fine particles. We do find plastic bottles, plastic bags, in the stomachs of the sea life.

Carolyn Virostek:
But we’re also finding these microplastics in the smaller forms. They can’t eat a big bottle, but they’re still eating these microplastics thinking that they’re food, and they’re either dying from it or they’re carrying it on to us. So even our urine, they’re finding huge amounts of microplastics in our system.

Matt Baum:
So does it break down? Yes. But it breaks down just into really small plastic. It doesn’t break down into something that is combustible even, or compostable. It’s just really, really little pieces. And that’s not an answer either. We don’t want that.

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. With compostable, something that’s compostable, that’s going to break down and may compost. Then we can use that, that’s something usable, but when it just breaks down into microplastics, into smaller parts of it, it’s not usable and it’s not ideal.

Matt Baum:
And still dangerous.

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s still dangerous. I don’t want to make it out to be this horrible thing, because it’s a lot better than using the fossil fuels, but we still have to move a little further along to make it the right product.

Hemp straws & how they’re made

Matt Baum:
So tell me about the hemp straws then. What are these made of, and how does something that feels so completely plastic, both in your mouth and in your hand and does the job, how is it completely compostable?

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, the biggest thing is the plant, hemp. You and I both are advocates of the hemp plant.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely, it’s why we are here.

Carolyn Virostek:
Because, it can do so much for us. How many plants do we know that you could use the seeds, the fiber and the pulp, and make so many products? One of the big taglines is that, hemp can make 25,000 products. Well, that’s actually a disservice. I think it can make a lot more than 25,000 products.

Matt Baum:
Oh yeah. Totally agree.

Carolyn Virostek:
Hemp is a cellulose based product as a plant, it has cellulose just like sugar, just like the sugar cane would, even has cellulose. These are products that are used in quote-unquote “Plastics to make material.” Because, cellulose is the binding agent. It helps to support that. And as you look at hemp, the stalks and the biomass, it’s very fibrous, it’s much more fibers than wood, and that’s what gives us its strength too.

Carolyn Virostek:
If we can make hemp into say, a fine powder, and compress it under heat with some other elements that are plant-based too, is what we use. Those can actually form a very strong material in a very simple way. It can be complicated, but then it can also be very simplified. You can watch YouTube videos, where people make this in their kitchen, where they take cornstarch and water, heat it up and they make a little plastic out of it. So, hemp that’s what we’re doing also, is we’re taking hemp and making it very fine powder, like a starch and adding other materials to help bind it. And then it gets heated up and formed into straws.

Matt Baum:
So, it literally melts basically, and the cellulose works with the other binders and holds it together. And at that point you can form it just like plastic? You put it around a dowel and it becomes a straw?

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly. Exactly. They do make them into little pellets, just like they do with the plastic, so that they can put it into the extruder machines, so they don’t have to adapt the machines for the product, but the product gets adapted for the machines. With that, then the pellets are made very small, just so they can be added to the machine. And then they get melted within that process, going through the extruder and that’s what helps to make them, now there are many products that can be made out of it too. And that’s in the futures bags, cups, you name it.

Matt Baum:
Sure. Sure. Now let me ask you, is clear a problem. Because I’ve heard in hemp plastics clear is very difficult, because of the nature of the plant green and brown, super easy?

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly, super easy.

Matt Baum:
But clear seems to be a problem still?

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. Yeah. You can’t really do a clear straw, but you can do an opaque straw or we do add colors and the colors that we add are standard colors that we are able to use in the industry that are, I’m not gonna say completely plant-based natural, but they are more natural. They are able to use them to color it into any color that you need. But people do like the natural color as a hemp straw though.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It makes sense that it’s green. It comes from hemp. I like it. It differentiates it, if nothing else. Let me ask, I take my hemp straw, I drink my drink, I throw my hemp straw away or I compost it. I actually have a compost pile in my backyard. Take it out, throw in the compost pile. How long before it’s gone?

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, it depends on your compost really, because anytime you… I would love to say that every single one’s going to compost in a certain time, but it’s going to be different. In fact, industrial composting is going to be the fastest and the best because they’re going to control the oxygen in there. They’re going to control the heat and even the microbes and all the little critters that are going to go in there and eat it up to make it into compost. How that’s going to be in your compost, is going to vary. How’s it going to change from day to day, let alone month to month, with all the different seasons.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, let’s say industrial compost, a best case scenario?

Carolyn Virostek:
We’ve seen them biodegrade completely in 120 days.

Matt Baum:
That’s amazing. That’s like paper.

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. When we look at the compost, there’s really nothing that’s in there. There’s no residue. That’s the other great thing, is that a lot of times you will find some residue from that because of some of the materials that they use gunks up the systems, and facilities that are compostable facilities are very picky about what they allow in, because it will mess up their whole system.

Carolyn Virostek:
And so, you have to be certified through the BPI world compostable and biodegradable. They will give you certifications on your product, which we do have. In fact, here in Pittsburgh, we have a company that does do the compost, and they actually go around to the restaurants and bring in all their compostable material, and they found our straws and they contacted us because they said, “Are you guys really compostable? Can you share that with me?” And I said, “Yes, it is.” And gave him the information.

Carolyn Virostek:
Because he said, “Otherwise we have to pull it out.” Because it’ll just gunk up the system. I said, “No, you really will not have an issue with it.” And that’s something that you can’t say about every product that is a PLA, and even PLAs if you send them in the landfill, people think, “Oh, we’re in the landfill, if it’s biodegradable it will breakdown.” Actually it won’t, because landfills seal them up and you have no oxygen, without oxygen it’s not going to break down, and it can actually create more methane gas. It’s same as a plastic, if it’s trying to break down in that environment, because it’s not the appropriate environment.

Matt Baum:
So, I say it’s like for a month and we say no more food garbage, your food garbage goes over here. And we’ll compost that because it’s so much methane builds up when you seal it and put it away in an airtight coffin. You’ve basically created a bomb, a methane bomb at that point. Is this different than other hemp plastics? Because, I’ve spoken to some people recently on the show and brought up that like, “Oh yeah, I just did an interview with some people about hemp plastic and stuff.”

Is hemp plastic really sustainable?

Matt Baum:
And a couple of them are like, “Oh, hemp plastic? Huh. You know about that?” And I was like, “Well, I don’t follow. What do you mean?” And they’re like, “It’s a lot of hemp filler, and it’s still a lot of plastic.” Is this different than that? Have you encountered that elsewhere? And are they lying to me? Because, I’ve bought some hemp plastic products and felt really good. Like, “It’s made of hemp plastic.” Does that mean that there are different levels of this, and you’ve got to watch out for it basically?

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. If you look at say the 3d printers, which is a lot of hemp plastic, which again, I think it’s great that they’re using hemp and they’re wanting to make things compostable and biodegradable. But a lot of them are going to be with a PLA or PHA, which is another one too, which is actually really good. I think it would be better if we did start using PHAs more than the PLAs, but they’re still not using that.

Carolyn Virostek:
But a lot of the 3d plastic filament, I’ve not been able to find one that does not have PLAs in there. Now, they do have different components even, or I should say substance, or where it might be 25% hemp, 40%, 60%. There’s very few companies that do anything to 90, to a 100%. Now there is a company that is in France and even in Canada, where they have really a much higher percentage of hemp in their plastic.

Carolyn Virostek:
Again, we use that term. But in their filaments, they do have a much better process that they’re using and they’re trying to break into the industry and they’re doing well with it, but there’s still very few companies that are doing that.

Matt Baum:
What can you look for? I’m just curious. Is there a question that you can ask? Is there something you can look for, when you see someone that is working with hemp plastic or some way? What do I ask them to make sure… I understand it’s good that they’re using any hemp as a filler, because less plastic better, but if it’s just a filler and there’s still plastic in it, or there’s these PLAs in it and whatnot, what is the question we should be asking to make sure that we’re getting responsibly made hemp plastic, that’s going to break down and it is compostable? Is it just as simple as saying, “Hey, is this compostable?”

Carolyn Virostek:
That’s one of the questions, yeah. “Is it compostable?” And how long does it take? And also, is it a PLA? If it’s a PLA, then we know that it’s going to break down into microplastics and it’s going to take longer for it to break down, and it’s not going to be compostable it’s biodegradable, but not compostable.

Matt Baum:
And they’re going to know, if I say the word, “Hey are their PLAs in this?” They’re going to go, “Oh, this guy knows what he’s talking about.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, they’re going to say, “Yeah, there are PLAs, but it’s compostable.” And that’s okay. Yeah, it is. I would much rather have a 25% hemp than a no hemp, and 25% with PLA than an oil based fossil fuel that they’re using.

Matt Baum:
Definitely.

Carolyn Virostek:
That would be one thing, “Are you using any fossil fuels?” Because some will still even use PLA with some fossil fuels to bind it up, to make a little bit stronger, but then we changed the compostable ability as well as the bio-degradability.

Matt Baum:
That’s exactly the subject that was brought up with the person I was speaking with, who I’m not going to name because they asked me not to, because they’re like, “I don’t want to mess up anyone else’s good thing.” And he’s like, “But a lot of these people that are working in hemp plastic now are literally just incorporating it into old fashion oil-based plastics and using it as a filler.” Which again, better but not the answer, not what we want.

Matt Baum:
The idea is to move to something closer to these hemp straws that like you said, “Reduce in to powder, you’re adding some…” And I’m not sure, I’m not even me to look for the scientific terms, what you add to make a bind, but you heat it up and boom, we have plastic. What is the future of this? Where does this go? Is this something that you… The straws I think are so important, because if you look at single waste plastic, that is the biggest form of plastic waste out there.

The future of hemp straws

Matt Baum:
It’s not children’s toys, or even industrial plastics, it’s single use plastic. So, obviously like you said, these are a little more expensive, but the idea behind it, is it’s more responsible. Are people responding to that? Are people excited about this? Are people willing to spend a little more? And do you think this is something that is going to catch on and start to get major plastic producers to pay attention?

Carolyn Virostek:
Absolutely. There’s an excitement about it, because of the property of hemp, as well as not having the PLAs. And it is more expensive. So it is something that we have to try to get them to understand, that you either pay for it now or pay for it later. You can either pay for the straws as a cheap component and then pay for it later in the processing of having to get it off the beaches and out of the waters, et cetera, or you pay a little bit more now and then that worry is less.

Carolyn Virostek:
We still have to be responsible in how we dispose them and how we compost them. But it’s something that, if it does end up in the ocean or in the waters, it’s going to break down and we don’t have to be so concerned about the toxic residue that it might leave behind.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It’s perfect.

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s very exciting. We have a lot of people excited about it. I will say the environment right now with the pandemic, everything’s shut down. It’s cooled things off, but what it has done also is made people more excited about realizing we need to do something now, this is not something that we need to put off for five years or try to work it into the budget because again, we either pay for them now, or we pay for that cost later. And I think right now people are really excited about having something that they know is going to break down and is not going to linger in our environment for years and years.

Matt Baum:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but sounds it like, I would guess anyway, that the price is only high because there aren’t a lot of people making this stuff yet. And as more people get into the business of making hemp plastic, that price is going to come down. Is it just a matter of producers? Because it seems like every aspect of the hemp business at present, and not just at present, but in the last we’ll say four years, their biggest issue has been finding producers to do the work.

Matt Baum:
Basically, we’ve got farmers, that’ll grow it and that’s great. But what happens next? Whether it’s going to a place that’s going to extract CBD, or take out the fiber or grind the seeds, is this just another case of, “We just need more people doing this?”

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. And knowing how to do it. Absolutely, because even though we are farming a lot more hemp than we were even a year ago. And a lot of companies say we’ve got so much biomass that we don’t even have the buyers for it. What it is, is that they actually don’t have the equipment or the know-how, to process it the way that they want it to, and that machinery is millions and millions of dollars.

Carolyn Virostek:
They’re bringing it out, but we’re in the growing pains, of learning how to use this product and how to use it in the best way that we can environmentally and being able to process it without any waste too. Because, we really can’t use the entire plant. We just need to know how and have the proper equipment. So, we’re in a big learning curve right now, growing pains with that.

Matt Baum:
How far off do you think we are? And just call your shot. No, one’s going to hold you to this. No, one’s going to look at the podcast in five years and be like, “Nice call.” But how far off do you think we are before, I go to Starbucks and I get a hemp straw?

Carolyn Virostek:
I’m hoping a year to two years.

Matt Baum:
Wow. Really?

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. That’s absolutely my hope.

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome.

Carolyn Virostek:
I will say that we had really big clients on the list, until the pandemic shut everything down. Really big companies similar to Starbucks. So it’s on the cusp there. People are wanting and ready. It’s just now we’ve we need the economy to just support it too.

Matt Baum:
So we’ve got the machines, we know how to do it. We’ve got people growing it, now it’s just a matter of showing people. Not only is this the responsible thing to do, it’s the right thing to do. And it’s a cost-effective thing to do, if we put a little know-how into it and that’s basically it, that’s our biggest issue. Just getting them to try it more or less.

Growing hemp for sustainability

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. Yeah. And then it will come down to a point where we do need more farmers for that biomass, because one farm is not going to be able to supply the biomass for Starbucks.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Carolyn Virostek:
That’s our hope, is that we have so much demand for it that we need more farmers to be able to supply that biomass.

Matt Baum:
It also seems like there’s a lot of farmers that went into this, with the CBD gold rush idea where like, “I’m going to grow hemp and sell to CBD weirdos, and they’re going to turn it into all kinds of fake drugs for hippies and I’m going to make money.” And then they went, “Oh, that market’s not quite there.”

Matt Baum:
And in the meantime, the fiber farmers weren’t as plentiful. Because again, it seems like they’re won as many, I want to say, industrial companies that were working in hemp fiber, is that part of the issue too? Just convincing people that like, “Hey, it’s not all CBD. We can grow this for fiber and seed as well?”

Carolyn Virostek:
It’s that as well as the machinery. In order to break the hemp down into the product that you need it for, whether it’s for clothing or for, quote-unquote “plastics.” It’s having the correct machinery to break it down. And that I think is what has slowed a lot of companies down into processing it. The hemp is the passion of mine. I really do think that we should be using it more. I feel I know maybe a half a percent of what we could know about the plant, but I think we’re still learning.

Matt Baum:
That’s the most exciting part though, right?

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
It’s like, how many other plants out there that farmers in the United States, in Iowa, in Nebraska, in Kentucky, in Colorado are growing right now where we’re like, “Oh my God, there’s so much more we could do with this.” What can we learn about this? It’s like, if we found out, like, “Look at that corn, we can build skyscrapers out of it.” Who knew?

Carolyn Virostek:
Who knew we could refill a car out of the corn oil?

Matt Baum:
Right. It’s crazy.

Carolyn:
We can do it, but are we doing it? That’s the same thing with hemp. We can make all these products. Why aren’t we?

Matt Baum:
Exactly.

Carolyn Virostek:
One, it is the infrastructure is not there. Also, we still have regulations that limit what can be done, in some States they’re not allowed to use the biomass or the fibers or anything for animal bedding, even just simple as that, or animal feed.

Matt Baum:
Let alone animal feed. They won’t even let them lay around in it for a fair. Like, is the cow going to get stoned? Come on, it’s ridiculous.

Carolyn Virostek:
Those things just make you question like, “Really, why aren’t we using it more?” Just like flax, that’s a plant too that can be used, and my great, great grandfather brought it over from Ireland in the 1850s to Canada. And I didn’t realize this until a few years ago when I started looking at the hemp and then I realized that he actually wrote a book in Canada about flax and the importance of flax for the fiber, for clothing, for so many different things, for food. He had a big part in bringing flax over to North America, but we’re still not using flax even to the point where we could be. Hemp is the same thing.

Matt Baum:
We put it in smoothies, and that’s about it, because it helps in digestion. Right? You can do so much more with it. It’s crazy.

Carolyn Virostek:
With hemp, even making clothing and building materials, if you’ve seen hemp wood, there’s a company, Hemp Wood.

Matt Baum:
I just interviewed them. I just interviewed them on the show. They were fantastic.

Carolyn Virostek:
I love their wood. With Hempcrete, what I think we should be doing is, especially in California, Colorado, Oregon, with all these forest fires, we need to rebuild with hemp, because if you can put a blow torch on hempcrete, why aren’t we building-

Matt Baum:
Same with hemp wood. Hemp wood barely burns, it’s crazy.

Carolyn Virostek:
And they’re antibacterial, antimicrobial. Why aren’t we using this down in South when they’ve got all these floods and hurricanes, because if it gets wet, all you got to do is bring in a dehumidifier and let it dry out.

Matt Baum:
Right. And you are good to go.

Carolyn Virostek:
Whereas now you got to tear down the whole structure because it turns to mold and mildew within three days.

Matt Baum:
Oh, but there’s a whole cottage industry for that too. So they might not be happy about losing their jobs.

Carolyn Virostek:
Exactly. And that’s why the fossil fuel industry pays $125 million a year to lobby, to keep their oils in the plastic industry. It’s just the same thing with everything else. I think we’re going to be moving towards that more and more, building materials, clothing, containers, furniture, I really hope that we can.

Matt Baum:
It’s unavoidable, because oil is going to get more and more expensive and more and more bizarre. And the ways we have to find it, we’re filtering it out of sand and stuff now, it’s going to get more and more expensive, and hemp like you said, they can grow it in a month.

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. And it doesn’t have toxic byproducts. If you fracking all that toxic byproducts that comes from the waters and it contaminates that, where is how it actually can heal the land. And creates more carbon dioxide for us. And it really can help in healing the planet. So yeah. Why aren’t we using more of it? And it’s all political, but we’re getting there.

Matt Baum:
Of course. It’s going to happen. I feel good about it. You feel good about it, we feel good about it. Right?

Carolyn Virostek:
Well, the other thing is that if you look at Europe, they’re way ahead of the game, they’ve been making clothes for decades. Now, they’re even making their cars out of hemp, the internal components, the dashboards and things are made out of hemp because it’s stronger, it’s lighter weight. So it makes the gas mileage even better.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. I interviewed a company that works with Maserati, Mercedes. It’s not like they’re making junk here. They’re making hemp plastic for very expensive high-end cars. And I asked him, “Why don’t we do this in the US?” And he goes, “Well, we don’t really want to mess with all your BS right now, as soon as you guys figure it out, we’ll be there.”

Carolyn Virostek:
Yeah. It’s got to make you question. Why is it that Europe is already making them, but we don’t have the American car manufacturer?

Matt Baum:
It’s shamefully stupid, is what it is.

Carolyn Virostek:
We also know that cars don’t have to rely on fossil fuels. Right? We can be using corn oil, hemp oil to run our cars.

Matt Baum:
Or electricity.

Carolyn Virostek:
Right. They want to tax people if they use solar energy. And it’s government regulations that are backed by these big corporations that are feeling threatened. And that’s why we lost cannabis to begin with in the 1930s, was because of political and corporate concern about getting into their space. And we’re just dealing with that in 2020.

Matt Baum:
That’s why they’re hesitating to bring it back too. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. This has been fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for the straws. They’re great.

Carolyn Virostek:
Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate you having me on, and making me feel at ease.

Matt Baum:
Totally. I took a box of the straws up to my local coffee shop and I was like, “Check it out. These are hemp straws.” And they were like, “Oh my God, these are amazing.” It’s like super or liberal, where you go to see dudes having Marxist conversations and stuff in Omaha, in our little blue pocket of Nebraska here in Omaha, but they loved them. So I’ll put them in touch. I’ll definitely put them in touch so they can order some.

Carolyn Virostek:
Great. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.

Hemp straws contest winners & Exhemplary Life coupon

Matt Baum:
Carolyn was wonderful to talk to, and she’s the type of person that is very passionate about hemp. And I love speaking to people like that. Funny story, when she initially started and I told her I wasn’t going to mention this on the show, but I thought it was funny enough that you guys should know.

Matt Baum:
When we first started talking, she was really worried that we may not be able to use the interview, because she doesn’t normally talk about this stuff. And she’s not from a science background, but as you can see, she is very well-versed in hemp plastics and bio-plastics, and it was so nice to talk to her. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Carolyn, I will have links to exhemplarylife.com in the show notes. And, like I promised you, if you use the coupon code 25 off that’s 25OFF, you will get 25% off your first purchase at exhemplarylife.com. That’s 25OFF, 25 off use that code.

Matt Baum:
Let them know that you heard about their site here on the Ministry of Hemp podcast and let them know that you appreciate what they are doing on their site. And as always, because we believe that the world is a better place for all when it’s more accessible, we have a full written transcript of this show in the show notes as well.

Matt Baum:
And now it’s contest time as promised. I get to announce the three winners of our exemplary life and Ministry of Hemp, Instagram giveaway, congratulations to @ritualsofthekitchen, @xtra_salt_xtra_lime, and @Kateanne27. You are all big winners of hemp straws and Ministry of Hemp stickers. So go tell every money you win big, when you listen to the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Oh, follow us on Instagram too, more about that in just a moment.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
And that brings us to the end of another exciting episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. If you dig what we do here on this show, and you think that hemp can change the world, the best way you can support us is to go to Patreon.com/ministryofhemp and become a Ministry of Hemp insider. It is an awesome way to help us spread the word. And you could access to podcast extras, early articles, all kinds of other stuff, not to mention you can feel better knowing you’re helping us spread the good word of hemp education.

Matt Baum:
And if you need more hemp education in your life, get over to ministryofhemp.com. Check out all our awesome articles there. Follow us on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, we are either at Ministry of Hemp or /Ministry of Hemp, maybe you got hemp questions. Maybe you’ve got some subjects you’d like to hear me talk about on the show.

Matt Baum:
Call me, leave me a message. And tell me about it. 402-819-6417. Leave me a message on our Ministry of Hemp voice line. And I might answer your question on the show with little help and Drew and Kate and maybe even Deseret who you’re going to hear from soon. She’s great. She’s our videographer. We love her. Again, that number is 402-819-6417. Call us, ask your questions and you might hear us answer them right here on the show.

Matt Baum:
Now, I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Remember to wash your hands. I hope you’re not traveling. And if you are out there and be extra careful, please wear a mask the time for me to get out of here. And I like to sign off the same way every time by saying, “Remember to take care of yourself, remember to take care of others and make good decisions, will you?” This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp.
Signing off.

The post Hemp Straws And The Sustainability Of Hemp With Exhemplary Life appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

Shoes. We all wear them, some even collect hundreds of pairs. But did you know up to 300 million pairs of shoes make their way to landfills every year. According to thechicecologist.com shoes make up a massive portion of waste in landfills and some elements of athletic shoes can take up to 1000 years to decompose.

In this episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, Matt sits down with Bernardo Carreira, CEO of 8000Kicks, to discuss their new line of hemp fabric-based shoes with bio-plastic soles. They talk about the impact an ecologically friendly shoe can have on the environment, the difficulties of running a start-up with a mission, and the ways hemp and bioplastic continue to prove to be sustainable replacements for oil-based plastics and fibers.

Update: Due to popular demand, 8000Kicks provided us with a coupon code. Use coupon ‘moh10‘ to get 10% off their hemp shoes!

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

Subscribe to our show!

Be sure to subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podbay, Stitcher, Pocketcasts, Google Play or your favorite podcast app. If you like what your hear leave us a review or star rating. It’s a quick and easy way to help get this show to others looking for Hemp information and please, share this episode on your own social media!

Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider and help spread the good word!

If you believe hemp can change the world then help us spread the word! Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider when you donate any amount on our Patreon page!

You’ll be the first to hear about everything going on with our special newsletter plus exclusive Patron content including blogs, podcast extras, and more. Visit the Ministry of Hemp on Patreon and become an Insider now!

Sustainable hemp shoes: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 58 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “Hemp Shoes Are Part Of A More Sustainable Future”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum. And, this is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education. Welcome back to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast. My name is Matt Baum. And, today on the show, we are going to talk about shoes, specifically shoes made of hemp. But before we get into that, let’s talk about shoes for a minute. I love shoes. I’m a huge shoe guy. I’m not like walk-in closet full of shoes, kind of guy; but I do love shoes, Adidas, Nike, Vans. I’m a huge fan. I hold on to them. I keep them clean. I like them to look good, but eventually they do get old. And then, I get rid of them. Oftentimes, I’ll take them to a secondhand clothing store. I try not to just throw them away. I’ll donate them. But, until I started working on this episode, I honestly didn’t even think about how much plastic goes into shoes, and how long they stick around.

Matt Baum:
According to thechicecologist.com, it’s estimated that 20 billion pairs of shoes are produced annually, with roughly 300 million pairs ending up in landfills, after they’ve been worn. The ethylene vinyl acetate, which usually makes up the mid-sole of most running shoes can last for as long as a thousand years in a landfill, a thousand years. And, that is absolutely insane. The good news is, there’s people out there that are worried about this, and thinking about it, and have even started making a more ecologically responsible shoe. Today on the show, my conversation is with Bernardo Carreira. He’s a CEO of 8000Kicks, and 8000Kicks are making an all-purpose athletic shoe, if you will, out of hemp and algae-based plastic, and they’re pretty fricken amazing. 8000Kicks is a startup, and Bernardo is super pumped about what’s in store for the future. I’m really excited for you to hear this interview. Here’s my conversation with Barnardo Carreira, CEO of 8000Kicks.

Meet Bernardo Carreira

Bernardo Carreira:
Okay. That’s a good question, and I’m currently stuck in Portugal because of COVID Portugal.

Matt Baum:
You’re stuck in Portugal. So, where would you be normally without this COVID business? Where would you be?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, actually I’m Portuguese. I’m here because my family is here.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Bernardo Carreira:
Otherwise, I would be in the U.S. We have currently, doing some hemp production in China, so I will be in the U.S. or China. But now, I cannot go to either one’s. [crosstalk 00:00:02:55].

Matt Baum:
Got to love it, right. Which makes business really easy, I’m sure.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, of course. It’s much easier.

Matt Baum:
Tell me about, 8000Kicks. What do you guys do there? We know that you make a hemp shoe. I have some on the way, and I’m super excited. But, tell me about 8000Kicks. What goes on there?

Bernardo Carreira:
Okay. It’s a [inaudible 00:03:17] because a lot of things go in there. But, let me describe a little bit of what we do. What is the shoe that we do? It started out as an idea, how can we make a super shoe that is eco-friendly, and meets all the needs of active person, a millennial that wants to go to work; and then, go to go for a hike in the mountain.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Bernardo Carreira:
And, a shoe for traveling, a shoe for a business, a shoe that I can wear, whatever. And, I don’t when I wear like 10 pairs of sneakers or 10 different flip-flops, every time I want to go to a different place.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Bernardo Carreira:
So, that’s the need that we faced. And, we wanted something sustainable. Because, guess what? We are millennials and we care about… We want to do things properly.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. That’s our cross to bear. We were actually care about this stuff, right?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. Not just millennials, but it’s super awesome to see that everyone nowadays cares about this. And, our team is young and we’re like, “Let’s do things the way we want the world to be.” And, that’s how it all started. And, it all started with a stupid brainstorming session when someone had the idea of…. We’re all smoking…. Yeah, we’re a bit high there, right. Then someone came up with the idea.

Matt Baum:
That happens. I get it.

Bernardo Carreira:
Let’s make a smokable shoe, the kind of ideas that you would have when you high.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

The creation of 8000Kicks hemp shoes

Bernardo Carreira:
And, that’s how we kind of joined cannabis to the equation. Back then, we didn’t really know what we wanted to do exactly. But, we just had a stupid idea of make it, hemp. And certainly, we realized that hemp is not only eco-friendly, but it’s also super strong, super durable, and it’s also cool.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. Its very cool.

Bernardo Carreira:
Right. So, we’re like, “Okay, this is us.” “This is what we need.” And, certainly the products are changing. And okay, we need to add more. Let’s make it waterproof, because personally I lived two years in London. And, hey man, London has a big problem, which is, it rains all the time.

Matt Baum:
It rains all the time. Yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
Day one, day two, day three, like 365 days a year.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. Its also sunny everyday, too. It’s weird, because the day starts up beautiful, then it rains. Then it’s beautiful, then it rains again. It’s so weird.

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly. How can you have like a pair of canvas shoes? I don’t know, like a pair of All Stars. The moment you step outside, you’re soaked wet, and it’s super annoying. And, at the same time, you want to do different stuff, but after you’re wearing an All Stars for a long time, your feet kind of feel a little bit sore. So, you want to have more than that, in terms of comfort. And, we started like innovating, okay, “Let’s make something better.” Then, okay, we decide make it waterproof, but what’s next? What can we make it? And then, we decided to initially we were working with a recycled rubber sole, but now we did a crazy upgrade, where we use algae. We literally collect seaweed…

Matt Baum:
Algae, like seaweed?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, exactly.

Matt Baum:
Oh my God. I didn’t know this part.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. That was a crazy innovation. You were like, “We need to stand out even more.” So, we partner with this company called Bloom, and they collect algae from algal blooms.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Bernardo Carreira:
Why are we doing this? Because algae, first it destroys the entire ecosystem if it grows exponentially, in algal blooms. And at the same time, it has some interesting properties that we can use to make it super light. And, that’s exactly what we’ve done. We decided to incorporate some of these algae, to make what we call, bloom foam. This is the name of our project.

Matt Baum:
That’s great.

Bernardo Carreira:
And so, it’s really light. Once you receive it, you will see the shoe is like a feather. It’s really interesting.

Making eco-friendly hemp shoes

Matt Baum:
So, lets talk about that for a second. Let’s talk about everything that goes into it. First of all, you just decide, we want to make an eco-friendly shoe, but it needs to be waterproof, it needs to do everything. This isn’t just a running shoe. This is a all around shoe. And then you decide, we want to go with hemp. And you said, “You’re dealing with hemp growers in China.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah.

Matt Baum:
How do you hook up with hemp growers in China? How does that work? Dude, [crosstalk 00:00:08:13]…

Bernardo Carreira:
[crosstalk 00:08:15] figuring it out, because I wish I knew, but it’s just knocking doors.

Matt Baum:
Just find [crosstalk 00:08:22] the right company.

Bernardo Carreira:
This was the number one struggle we had with our project. From the moment we had the idea of making a smokable shoe, until the moment that we actually had a prototype, that was like six months.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Bernardo Carreira:
So, it’s hard.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
I mean, you can Google and you will find a lot of hemp manufacturers. The real problem is to understand the ones that actually make it good. The ones that make, what do you need, what we need. And then, you have to also understand the one that has, I mean, the good quality. And, there is the process that takes time. And then, you also have another problem, which is once you find the right one, and the one that does it well, water-proofs with the technology that you want, and you can develop the fabric the way you want; then you realize, “Okay, but we need a huge minimum order for you. And, if that was like, [crosstalk 00:09:22] really, really, really complicated.

Matt Baum:
It’s got to makes sense money-wise, too. You can’t charge $5,000 for a pair of shoes. You’ve got to figure out how to bring the price down, so.

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly. And, the thing is they don’t let you order 10 meters. You need to order 1000 meters at once. And, that is minimum order quantities. And, that was a big struggle for us. Because, for us to achieve that quality, we had to develop from scratch. To develop from scratch, you need big quantities.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
So, it was tough, very tough. But now, we get the ball rolling, so we can now focus on bringing more innovation, and bringing more products, and continue this iteration process, and improve every step of the way.

Sneakers with bioplastic soles

Matt Baum:
Tell me about the algae bloom plastic. How did you find that? Initially, did you think, maybe we can do it with hemp foam, or hemp rubber, or something?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. We had a lot of ideas. It’s kind of, we brainstorm a lot. And then, kind of saw this company doing this interesting stuff, and they were exploring like…. It was kind of random, I will honestly tell you. It’s like, you literally see something, okay, this is interesting, “I’m going to dig into that.”

Bernardo Carreira:
And, I sent them a few emails, and they replied, “Oh, this is interesting too.” So, we start developing it. And, this was exactly one year ago.

Matt Baum:
And, where are they out of?

Bernardo Carreira:
They’re based in the U.S.

Matt Baum:
Okay.

Bernardo Carreira:
And, they collect algae from like this algae blooms, all over the U.S., Europe and Asia.

Matt Baum:
Oh, wow.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. We saw that they were doing some interesting stuff working with surfboards. Okay, we want to develop the same thing for our shoes. And, they were like, “Ah, this is interesting.” [crosstalk 00:11:28] Yeah. And, we eventually developing… Okay, we need more of this, more of that. And then, one year later, we launching this shoes with this technology.

Matt Baum:
It seems like a lot of this innovation comes from people like you who are just like, “Hey, can we do that?” “Is that something we should try?” And someone else was like, “Yeah, that’s weird, let’s try it.”

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. It’s a bit like that. But guess what, if you don’t try it, you don’t make it.

Matt Baum:
Exactly. So, you’ve got your prototype. You started producing shoes. Where are they going to go? Where can I buy 8000Kicks? What’s the challenge of getting these, into markets. Where’s it going to be be?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. So, this is something that you’re trying to be very careful with. And, the thing here is, we want to control every single step of production, to delivery, and to the customer. And, the reason we do this, is because if problems happen, then… To be honest, we found problems where we did not really expect, and this allows us to… Look, I’m the CEO here, and I answer customer’s emails every day, which is not normal in a company. In most companies [crosstalk 00:12:46]…

Matt Baum:
Typically, not. [crosstalk 00:12:49] Every time I contact Apple, I certainly don’t get, Tim and the boys.

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly. But, the reason I do that is, because it’s crazy, amount of problems you face from production to customer. And, we’re still trying to fix every single one of them, and make sure that they are properly sold, before we expand and start selling. So right now, only on our websites, and that’s because we control it. Customers have a experience that we can control, they can communicate directly with us.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Bernardo Carreira:
We basically guarantee that they are a 100 percent happy with the product. We know [inaudible 00:13:31] they are using it, except if something goes wrong with the product, because sometimes it does; we are there to replace it, or change it, or whatever needs to be done. So, that’s how we want to make sure we grow, and we make sure we do it properly.

The challenges of making hemp shoes

Matt Baum:
So, you said there were problems you ran into that you couldn’t even foreseen. What was some of those issues? What were the biggest issues that you ran into?

Bernardo Carreira:
All right. That’s a big question. So, I’m going to tell you a funny story. [crosstalk 00:14:02] When we were shooting [crosstalk 00:14:04]…

Matt Baum:
Because success is fun, we love about success. But, the mistakes and the problem, that’s where the real story is. Right? That’s where the fun is.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, exactly. I will tell you a funny one. So, one of the big problems we had was, we were shipping everything out of the UK. Because it’s like, okay, this seems like a no brainer. UK is competitive worldwide prices. Let’s ship the shoes from the UK to the U.S. And, knowing freight time is kind of fast. Let’s do it. Suddenly we realized, that customer’s got the shoes in the U.S. And, imagine you buy a shoe, we ship it from the UK, and it’s the wrong size.

Matt Baum:
Oh yeah, because UK sizing and U.S. sizing is different.

Bernardo Carreira:
No, not really actually. We have the shoes in U.S. sizes.

Matt Baum:
Oh, gotcha. But, I got my shoes.

Bernardo Carreira:
Sometimes, people order the wrong size.

Matt Baum:
Okay. Gotcha.

Bernardo Carreira:
So we just say, “Hey, you can ship the shoes back to us, we don’t have a return…” “Right now, we’re working and we going to launch a free return service.” But imagine that, for exchanges, we were like, “Okay, just send us a shoe back, we’re going to exchange it. And then, some customers were like, “Oh, this is impossible, “I’m paying like…”

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It’s like 20 bucks, 30 bucks to send it back to UK.

Bernardo Carreira:
And, we were like, “Oh, really?” We were like, “We’re not expecting this.” We thought it was like… Okay, we thought was kind of cheap.

Matt Baum:
Cheap for you, because you’re sending so many. But, when it’s one person sending one box, that’s a whole different story, so.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. So we were like, this is a problem because we cannot allow our customers to pay this [inaudible 00:15:49] for an exchange. I mean, if I was a customer, I’ll be a bit annoyed.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Bernardo Carreira:
This is a really funny story. I was looking for a student in the U.S., and I hired him. And I said, “Bro, I’m going to pay you to receive our shoes.” “I’m going to send you spare boxes, and I’m going to send you a cleaning kit.” “You’re going to receive the shoes, you’re going to exchange them; and you’re going to send [inaudible 00:16:21] shoe to the right customers.” And, basically we had a student working in the U.S., helping do all the exchanges for us.

Matt Baum:
It’s like own little private, like UPS hub, basically. And, it’s just like one dude, cleaning shoes, and mailing them out.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. I mean, this guy saved our life. I mean, customers were like, “Man, this is impossible.” “We cannot ship the shoes back to the UK.” And, they like [inaudible 00:16:48]. And then, we found this solution. It was really funny. You had a fulfillment center in Florida from the student, which is kind of funny.

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome. Is he still with the company, or has he graduated and moved on?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, he graduated.

Matt Baum:
Ah, that’s too bad. It’s hard to find good help. You know? So, have you heard…

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. We still get in touch with him, and eventually got some spare shoes. Some shoes never got used, never got shipped, so he got pretty happy with two or three pairs of shoes for himself.

Competing with other shoes

Matt Baum:
Hey, that’s not bad. Have you heard that from any of the big boys yet? Have you heard from like Adidas, or Nike, or anything? Have they been poking around, see what you’re doing? Is anyone else doing stuff like this, right now, with shoes?

Bernardo Carreira:
I mean, with hemp, there are a few companies. We already got some copycats.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, of course.

Bernardo Carreira:
Which to be honest, if it were like… I mean, it’s always like mixed feelings, right. You get a copycat, you feel like, “Oh, these guys here…”

Matt Baum:
It’s a compliment. But it’s a compliment, right? I mean, they’re saying like, “Hey, these guys have a good idea.”

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, we see it as a complement.

Matt Baum:
“Let’s do what they’re doing.”

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly. And to be honest, more than a compliment we see it as like these guys if they’re doing it right, and by using hemp itself, it’s just already amazing. Okay, perfect. We want to make hemp great again. If other shoe companies use hemp as well, that will be awesome. That means, we are achieving our vision of making hemp great again. And also, it’s a compliment for our business as well. And I mean, it’s a little bit like, you always feel very low, these guys are…

Matt Baum:
Right.

Bernardo Carreira:
But in the end, I think you need to take like… You cannot be selfish, and you need to be a little bit more altruistic towards what’s happening overall, rather than you.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
I mean, you have to understand that, it’s bigger than you, it’s bigger than you selling shoes. It’s, you’re creating something for the planet, not just for you.

Matt Baum:
If, everybody started copying you, the world would be a better place. And sure, you’ve got a lot of competition, but hey, we’ve changed the world at that point, so.

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
That’s not something to you know… So, have any of the big guys… Have you heard from anyone, like any major shoe producers that are looking into doing something like this?

Bernardo Carreira:
We got a few [inaudible 00:19:29]… And, to be honest, I look at it the same way. I doubt that they will make a lot of hemp shoes. But, if they start making hemp shoes, I will take it as a compliment. But, I saw some big companies buying our shoes already.

Matt Baum:
Oh, yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
Because…

Matt Baum:
They want to check them out.

Bernardo Carreira:
Because, they buy the shoes with business email.

Matt Baum:
Oh. Come on, guys. They’re like ship to… We like Rick Shipment from Rick@nike.com. [inaudible 00:20:06].

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
Come on man, you got to be smarter than that.

Bernardo Carreira:
To be honest, I see it. And to be honest, it’s a compliment. I showed the team and say, “Hey guys, competition is buying our shoes.” But in the same way, we’re like, “It’s not really competition for me.” We’re doing something unique. We are doing something that we identify ourselves with. And to be honest, if everyone’s starts making hemp shoes, and they’re good for the environment, then we just…

Matt Baum:
Again.

Bernardo Carreira:
We’re moving to making more eco-friendly stuff, so that they can copy this again.

Matt Baum:
Mark that a win. Definitely. How many people out there right now are wearing your shoes? How many have you shipped so far? Roughly, you don’t have to give me a give me an exact number, but like roughly.

Bernardo Carreira:
Okay. A few thousand, cannot say for sure. Four, or 5,000.

Matt Baum:
So, this is still very new. This is like a small club of people around the world, that are checking these out [crosstalk 00:21:05].

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. Exactly.

Matt Baum:
But, what are they saying? Those who have bought them, like what’s the response to them?

Bernardo Carreira:
I don’t want to sound biased, because I will obviously say that they love them.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Bernardo Carreira:
I mean…

Matt Baum:
I didn’t think you [inaudible 00:21:20], they hate him. Oh God, it’s been a failure.

Bernardo Carreira:
Well, you can always check our reviews on the Trustpilot. Those, we cannot control.

Matt Baum:
Trustpilot, really good, definitely.

Bernardo Carreira:
People go there, and they post the reviews. And [inaudible 00:21:36] go back, I completely like [inaudible 00:21:39]. Yeah. But, so some reviews and some feedback from people that… Mostly, they all like the shoes. Some of them gave comments like, “Oh, I wish my shoe was lighter.” “Oh, I wish my shoe was…” And, this is something that we take really serious. And, that’s why we improve to, bring this new algae sole. This new [inaudible 00:22:03] is super light. Because okay, this guy is right, and he gave the… Like a few people said, “I wish the shoe was a bit lighter. And we’re Like, “They are right, we need to improve it.” And then, we make it super light.

Matt Baum:
That’s where the new soles came in. Yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah.

The future of 8000Kicks shoes

Matt Baum:
So, [crosstalk 00:22:19] what was the first soul made of? Was that the recycled plastic, or recycled rubber, you said?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. Recycled rubber. So, we changed the entire structure. And basically, we use the algae, which makes it super light. And, that was a big innovation for us, but that’s basically what happened. People complaining that it was, “Okay, this shoes could be lighter.” And we’re like, “Okay, how can we do this?” We had this company that does algae bloom foam. Then we decided, “Let’s do it.” And, that’s how it started.

Matt Baum:
So, what’s the plan?

Bernardo Carreira:
The other things, were the small things, people said that, “The cork rubber was very good, very interesting, but they wish it was a little bit more cushioning.” Which to be honest, I did not really expect. But, after reasoning with the customers, I understood that it didn’t have the feel that they wanted. So, we were like, “How can we improve this?” So, I mean, there’s no such thing as a perfect shoe. There’s always stuff to improve.

Matt Baum:
Of course.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. And, that’s how we can improve the shoe to be a super shoe. We always like, this small detail, this small detail. And, that’s how it goes.

Matt Baum:
And, you answering the emails, you’re on the front line; so you are carrying this stuff direct. It’s not like someone is coming to you with a marker [inaudible 00:00:23:46], “Sir, 14.2 percent of the respondents said, that the shoe needs to be a little bit lighter.”

Matt Baum:
You’re just getting emails directly from customers like, “Hey man, I wish the shoe was a little lighter.” And, that kicks in a new idea to have like, “All right, how do we do that? And, it [inaudible 00:24:00]. I got to check out this algae foam. That sounds amazing. What’s next for you?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, you getting them shipped to your place right now.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I know. I’m super excited. So, what’s next for you guys? Post COVID, you’re coming back to the States, and then you take over the U.S. Is that the plan? We’re all wearing hemp shoes.

Bernardo Carreira:
[inaudible 00:24:18] COVID, we’re going to make a mandatory for every farmer.

Matt Baum:
I love it.

Bernardo Carreira:
No. So, we’re still really small, right. So the idea is, we making sure that we’re bringing new colors, making sure that people like what we doing. Growing, [inaudible 00:24:40] very strong foundation. And, we have a lot of attention already, but we don’t want to outgrow what is sustainable.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Bernardo Carreira:
We want to make sure, that we have full control of what we make. And for that reason, the idea is to go to the U.S., so that we can follow up a little bit more on this process, be there with our customers, do a few more events, where we actually are in-person with the customers. Which is kind of complicated right now, because of the COVID. But, we wish we would be doing that right now.

Bernardo Carreira:
And, bring new colors. What colors do customers want? How do they feel about walking with this shoes. Do they want more like summer stuff, more like winter stuff. Of course now, it’s winter, and then summer coming, but that’s easy to say. But, what exactly is that you want for summer. But, we don’t want to make just another summer shoe, or another winter shoe; it has to be amazing. Right. Otherwise, we just making another pair of, I don’t know, sandals, or another pair of boots. I mean, [crosstalk 00:25:57].

Matt Baum:
But, these are blue. And, these are pink.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. Exactly. It has to be really high quality. Our idea is like, small amount of products, but amazing. Amazing ones. [crosstalk 00:26:15] I’m really excited for you to try them, because really, you’ve [crosstalk 00:26:17] for a long time.

Matt Baum:
I’m super excited. So, the idea is to scale up responsibly, basically. And, not outgrow the quality that you’re trying to maintain now, while also pushing the product forward.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, exactly.

8000Kicks = 8000 B.C.

Matt Baum:
That’s amazing, man. So 8000Kicks, where’s the name come from?

Bernardo Carreira:
Okay. That’s a good question. A lot of people ask that. It actually comes from 8000 BC. That’s when hemp originated in Asia, in Taiwan, in China. Basically, hemp started back then. And we said, “Let’s honor the past, and let’s use a funky number, 8000 Kicks.”

Matt Baum:
That’s great.

Bernardo Carreira:
That’s how we came up with it.

Matt Baum:
I love it. Bernardo, can’t wait for you to get back to the States. I mean, I’m sorry you’re trapped there, but I got to get one of those hats too. I’m going to get on your site, and go order one of those hats. I’m guessing, that’s all hemp as well.

Bernardo Carreira:
The hats. Oh, these hats.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. The hat you’re wearing, yes.

Bernardo Carreira:
These ones are not for sale yet. We are developing them, but not for sale yet. And actually, we have a few ideas, funky ideas, that we want to launch. But, the hats are one of them.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Bernardo Carreira:
But, not yet. Not yet.

Matt Baum:
Fair enough.

Bernardo Carreira:
Not right now, only the masks.

Matt Baum:
So, final question. If I’m Adidas or I’m Nike, and I come to you tomorrow; and I go, “Bernardo, this is an idea, man, how much you want?” “I’ll write you a cheque right now.” Are you selling, or are you holding onto it?

Bernardo Carreira:
To be honest, not really selling. I think if it was for the money, there will be easier ways to make money.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Bernardo Carreira:
I will go to investment banking, or something like that.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Bernardo Carreira:
But, there’s something that the big brands have, that I don’t have, and that is the access to a lot of resources, and the access to a lot of big networks. And so, although we were really committed to do amazing stuff, and we have a lot of energy and motivation; a lot of times it takes us a lot of effort to get… So, we mentioned like, these guys have big Ferrari’s, then they can have really big machines. Then basically, we don’t have big machines, so we have to run all night to catch up with it.

Matt Baum:
Right, exactly.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. So the thing is, we are really committed to quality, and by teaming up with people that have a lot of experience, that would be very good for us. So, we want to scale up the team to bring more quality. But, these big companies have a lot of resources, that can help us drive our mission. So it really, it shouldn’t be a question of money. It should be a question of, what do they bring to the table that can help us bring this project further.

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome. That’s completely awesome. So for now, if I want to buy a pair of shoes, I have to go to 8000kicks.com.

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
Awesome. Thanks so much.

Bernardo Carreira:
And, you buy one each color.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I buy one each color. Deal.

Bernardo Carreira:
We’re coming up with new color’s. And, if you want to suggest any new color, feel free to reach out on Instagram, or Facebook, or just via email. Because, many times I’m there with my colleagues answering the emails.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Bernardo Carreira:
So, you’ll probably get a message directly from me, asking you more questions, “Hey, what color?”

Matt Baum:
It sounds like you’ve got a great product, and it sounds like people are excited. I’m super excited for this. Shoes are one of those things, that I don’t think we think about enough, when we buy them. Because, they do have so much plastic, and there’s a bunch of cloth on them. And, when you get done with those shoes, they just get thrown away into a landfill. Yours, since they’re hemp and this algae plastic, do they break down better eventually, when I’m done with them? And, I’ve worn them for five or 10 years, when I’m done with them. Will they be around, as long as my Nike shoes?

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah, definitely not. They are not. However, I have to be a 100 percent transparent. The shoes are not a 100 percent natural. This is a fact, they are like 95 percent natural. Then we had to add, for instance, our membrane, it’s synthetic, so this is how we guarantee that it’s waterproof. But to be honest, we don’t mind adding that five percent extra of synthetic material to improve the features, and to make sure the product is extra good.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Bernardo Carreira:
And also, in many cases that also helps us reduce the CO2 footprint, which for us, is a big number.

Matt Baum:
Definitely.

Bernardo Carreira:
That’s one of our biggest KPIs. And right now, we have 4.1 kilo of CO2, kilo per shoe. And, I mean, that is a really low number. Most shoes consume 30 kilos of CO2 per production. By adding this small synthetic, we reduce a lot, the CO2 that goes out; and we increase a lot, the features of the shoes. And basically, what that does is, instead of the shoes lasting six months, they last one year, two years. So, it’s the five percent that we will rather not replace by natural materials, that do not perform as well.

Matt Baum:
But, the point being like 95 percent natural, is 95 percent more than just about every other shoe on the market. So, I’m not [crosstalk 00:32:24]…

Bernardo Carreira:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
Like, that sounds pretty good to me, so.

Bernardo Carreira:
Yeah. I mean, full transparency on our side.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. No, and that’s awesome. I mean, a lot of people wouldn’t even bring that up. I’m glad you did. But, I think it’s amazing. I’m excited to get these. I think you guys have, what looks like a really cool product. And as I know, there’s others on the market, but you’ve already sent some to some people at Ministry of Hemp, and they’re like, “I love them, I think they’re amazing.” So, I’m super excited, man. And, I look forward to…

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
I finally got my pair of, black with black sole 8000Kick hemp shoes this week, which is cool. Because, I can wear them with all my metal T-shirts, and stuff. And I got to say, I love them. They’re lightweight. They’re super comfortable. They’re a fantastic shoe. And, I feel good owning them, too. If you want to check out 8000Kicks, I will have a link to their website in the notes, for this episode.

Matt Baum:
Thanks for joining me, again for another episode of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast. Next time on the show, I’m going to be talking to some local guys right here in Nebraska, where I’m from Ministry of Hemp is technically out of Austin, Texas, where Kit our editor in chief, and Drew, our brand managers live. But right here in Nebraska, there are some people doing some really cool stuff with hemp. So, I’m excited to talk to them. If you need more Ministry of Hemp in your life before that, head over to our site, ministryofhemp.com, and check out some really good articles we have up right now. We have an update on the side effects of CBD oil, and it talks all about whether or not CBD is safe. We also have a really interesting article about, can you overdose on CBD, if you take too much? Spoiler alert, No. But, it’s a good read. And if anybody could, it would be me, because I have a ton of it, and I’m always trying different CBD stuff for this show.

Matt Baum:
Speaking of the show, if you like what you hear, give us a rating, give us a review. It really does help, for us to get this information to people that are looking for it. And, it raises us in the search algorithms as well. And, if you really want to help us out, head to Patreon/ministryofhemp, and become a Ministry of Hemp insider. We just put up a podcast extra, today; me talking to Evan Nison from NORML. You may remember him, from last week’s episode. We talk about his San Francisco based cannabis tour guide company, that takes people on tours of local cannabis dispensaries, and farms. It’s a really cool little discussion.

Matt Baum:
And it’s our way of saying, thank you to you guys for supporting us on Patreon. You can find a link to our Patreon, in our show notes. And, speaking of the show notes, here at the Ministry of Hemp, we believe that a more accessible world is better for everyone. So, we include a full written transcript of this episode in the show notes, over at ministryofhemp.com. All right, that’s it. I got to get out of here. Thank you so much for joining me, again. And, I like to end the show the same way, every time. Remember to take of yourself. Remember to take care of others. And, make good decisions, will you? This is Matt Baum, with the Ministry of Hemp. Signing off.

The post Hemp Shoes Are Part Of A More Sustainable Future, With 8000Kicks appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

First, our host Matt begins the Ministry of Hemp podcast with a word about our new Best CBD Pre-Rolls 2020 article. It’s full of great info pertaining to pre-rolled CBD cigarettes and hemp joints, which a lot of you have been asking about lately.

In the main conversation, Matt talks with Jordan Hinshaw, CEO of GreenTek Packaging. GreenTek’s misson is to replace everyday plastics with eco-friendly hemp plastic. The two talk about the benefits of not just hemp plastics but pairing them with other bioplastics too. They compare hemp and regular plastic in both strength, applications, and sustainability. Plus they discuss Greentek’s latest venture, Hemptensils which they hope to become a responsible replacement for single-use plastic silverware.

About Jordan Hinshaw & GreenTek Packaging

The Son of Major Leaguer George Hinshaw and a bilingual Los Angeles teacher/principal, Jordan developed a unique perspective on American Exceptionalism in the diverse city of Long Beach, CA. Having spent the early part of his twenties living and working in 20 states, Mexico, Canada, and briefly in Japan, he grew a clear understanding of the impact of climate change and plastic waste on the environment.

Idolizing the work of William H. Deming, Jordan’s belief in the future strength of the American economy being based on domestic manufacturing and renewable resources has guided his work towards innovations in industrial hemp. Following stints with both manufacturing and fulfillment companies whose supply chains were entrenched overseas, Jordan, along with a team of industry resources engineers andadvisors, established GreenTek in 2019. Now, they work to grow its offerings of eco-friendly packaging and housewares using domestic hemp and other plant feedstocks.

Brought to you by Canvas 1839

This episode is brought to you with help from our partners at Canvas 1839. This Austin, TX brand creates high quality CBD oil and CBD topicals using Colorado-grown, full-spectrum hemp extract. They develop their great products with the help of their chief science officer, Dr. Kyle Hammerick, a Stanford graduate.

We’re big fans of Canvas 1839 products and think you should try them too. And right now you can get 15% off your order just for being a listener to this show. Head to canvasrelief.com and use the code friend15 and you get 15% off your purchase. Thanks again, Canvas, for making this episode possible.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

Subscribe to our show!

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Bioplastics and hemp utensils: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 55 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “CBD Testing & Stopping Bad CBD Oil”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp Podcast brought to you by Ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education.

Matt Baum:
(singing)

Matt Baum:
Today on the show, we’re going to talk about hemp plastics. What are we really talking about, when we talk about hemp plastic? Let’s be honest, we’re talking about garbage, because plastic makes up not only the bulk of our garbage that we throw away, but it also sticks around longer than just about anything we throw away. Today on the show, I’m going to talk to a guy named Jordan Hinshaw. He’s the CEO of GreenTek Plastics. He is working on incorporating hemp plastic, into some very simple every day things that we use, single use plastics like containers and utensils. It’s an awesome conversation. This is the kind of guy that’s really going to change things, and I’m so excited for you to hear from him.

Matt Baum:
But before we get into that, I want to let you know that, we are once again partnered with Canvas 1839. They’re centered out of Austin, Texas they’re buddies of ours, and they are a fantastic CBD brand. You guys are constantly hitting us up and asking us, “Who can I trust? Who should I buy from?” Canvas is one of those companies that is doing it right, and we are super proud to partner with them. Later on the show, I’m going to tell you how you can get 15% off your first order from Canvasrelief.com. Huge thanks to canvas for partnering with us.

Ministry of Hemp picks the best CBD pre-rolls

Matt Baum:
Before we get into the interview real quick, a lot of people have been contacting both the site and me, asking about pre-rolls, about smokable hemp. We’ve got a fantastic article up at Ministryofhemp.com right now. It’s all about the companies that are doing it right, from growing their hemp, to drying it, to putting it into their pre-roll, so you know exactly what you’re getting, and exactly what it’s supposed to be doing. Now, we’re not going to tell you that smoking is healthier. There’s dangers to smoking. Yes. If you’re inhaling smoke, you’re doing something that is not great for your lungs. But, if you’re doing it in limited amounts, to help with pain, appetite, anxiety, things that CBD really can help, there are very quick benefits to smoking hemp.

Matt Baum:
But, if you are going to smoke him, of course, we want you to do it with caution and in moderation. I’ve linked this article in the show notes for this episode. I’ve tried a few myself and I have to say, I really like smokable hemp, but again, only in moderation.

Meet Jordan Hinshaw

Matt Baum:
My conversation today is with Jordan Hinshaw. He’s the CEO of GreenTek Packaging, and Jordan is awesome. [inaudible 00:02:48] here he came up in the cannabis industry, and saw a real chance for hemp to become a plastic substitute, that could literally change the world. GreenTek is a manufacturing company out of the South Bay in Long Beach. They emphasize community improvement and sustainable economics. You’re going to hear him talk about responsibility before profit. I cannot stress how important and cool their mission is. This is my conversation with Jordan Hinshaw of GreenTek Packaging.

Matt Baum:
Jordan, before we get into it, why don’t you tell me what makes a guy like you decide, “Hey, I want to open a company that not only is dealing with hemp in a time where it’s still pretty wild west and scary, but I want to take on the plastics company, and show people that we can make the same stuff out of hemp.” Where did this come from? How does this start?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, no. It was kind of organic, no pun intended. The idea was floating around in Long Beach and in the cannabis space for some time, that you have all this raw material that’s not being used, and new advances in technology. So, I just wanted to be part of the forefront of that push, and saw it as purpose over profits. Coming out of my previous career, where I was well-paid for what I was doing and enjoyed it, but just didn’t feel like I was making an impact in a larger industrial way.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Luckily, I had the background of in engineering. I was at Cal Poly alumni, where I studied mechanical engineering, and Cal State, East Bay alumni, where I was doing industrial engineering studies in the off seasons on their quarter system, before that evaporated. So, I just felt like it was a next point for my skillsets and my interests.

Matt Baum:
So, what drew you specifically to the cannabis? Were you working in that? Cannabis obviously has been legal in California for quite a while, or did you just notice like, “Hey, there’s a real business here and a real opportunity that people aren’t seizing on.” Was it just that simple?

Jordan Hinshaw:
A bit of both. So, I’ve been a well integrated. Like you said, California has been legal for some time in the cannabis space. I myself, I’m a member of the Long Beach Collective Association, as is our company, and I had done some work with… I’ve worked through the supply chain of cannabis a bit, more on the logistics side, fulfillment, even down to being able to go to the fields and see how they operate, and do that side of the business since I was… I’m 30 now, so it’s about a decade ago when that started.

Matt Baum:
Wow.

Jordan Hinshaw:
It was just kind of the tinglings of someone who’s interested in that space, and understands and respects that it’s more than just psychoactives and good times. There’s actual industry and innovation going on.

Introducing GreenTek Packaging

Matt Baum:
Tell me about GreenTek. How did it start? Right now, you’re moving into the utensils, which is how I found you. I saw a press release and I was like, “This is freaking amazing and exactly the kind of stuff we need to be doing with hemp.” How did GreenTek get started? What was the first products?

Jordan Hinshaw:
The first products were all based on packaging for the cannabis industry. We were prototyping a ton of containers that had a balance of like rigid aspects with the base, and some elastomers that we were going to make them airtight, and try to offer something that was industrially compostable and made from plant based matter. We were courting some rather large pre-roll companies, like flower companies that were doing units at 50,000 or 100,000 per month, where we would justify some custom materials that were a bit over in the luxury range of pricing, but were environmentally much more beneficial.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, you’re making a statement, definitely. If you’re going to grow this stuff right, and you’re going to talk about how important it is to farm it, and do it the right way, you may as well package it the right way too, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Exactly. That’s all feedback from the consumer base. That’s all based on how people in general are moving in that direction. The companies don’t want to be too far behind it, so they’re trying to match solutions with revenue.

The challenges of developing hemp bioplastics

Matt Baum:
So, what was the most difficult part? Like when you guys started this and you decided, “Okay, we want to move into hemp plastics and whatnot,” we call it hemp plastics, but there’s no petroleum in it. What was the hardest part in developing that kind of stuff, and also getting it to the consumer, who’s going to buy it and package their stuff? When I say the consumer, the companies. Was it difficult to sell them on the idea that like, “Hey, this is going to be a little more expensive, but look, it does the same job. Not just that, you can throw this away and not feel guilty about it.” Was that all it took to sell them on it?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. So yeah, if you were able to make it as concise and well put as you did, absolutely. It’s a massive undertaking.

Matt Baum:
If you guys are hiring, let me know. This sounds cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Very well done, right? It was a massive undertaking, and a supply chain management challenge where, you got new infrastructures, new machinery that’s being placed around the nation, farmers that are just getting into their swing of things in terms of production and specifics of how it comes out. So, it’s working with those groups collectively, understanding our own capabilities, to be able to offer pricing that is measurable to the value add in their operations.

Matt Baum:
Right, right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
We’ve had some swings and misses for sure. We’ve had some really big players that came to us and asked us to work with them, and then kind of got an idea where the pricing was, and was like, “Well, we’re going to hold off a little bit longer.” But, we’ve also had a lot of smaller businesses that are much closer to their consumer, that are much more quick to say, “We understand the intrinsic value of what you’re doing here,” because the externalities of us continuing to make plastics are outweighing the small pennies that we’re saving by using them.

Why bioplastics are more expensive

Matt Baum:
Absolutely. Let me ask you, when you said you had like some bigger companies that came in, and they looked at the pricing, and obviously they’re going off bottom line in a case like that, is it just a matter of catching up technology-wise to bring that price down? Or, is it a matter of more people growing hemp? Is it a matter of more processing, better processing? What do you think pushes that price point down to a point where you can say something like, “Hey McDonald’s or Hey, Walmart…” Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of health food stores and the whole foods and whatnot, but they’re not going to change the world at the price point they’re selling food at. We’re going to change the world by getting this stuff in frigging Walmart, you know?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right.

Matt Baum:
What do you see as the biggest hurdle to getting that price down? What do you think?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. I think it’s mainly the second by comparison of those aspects. Scale really is a huge thing, and you have to walk that up. It’s speculative to guess that everything is going to go perfectly well when you go from selling 100,000 units to 100 million units.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, there’s a brick by brick aspect of building the industry, where you want traction to grow in an organic manner, to a point where you can be confident to say, “Hey, look McDonald’s, we have this proven process here. Delivering at this scale would allow us to be price competitive within 10 or 20%,” and have them say, “Yeah, yeah, we see the work you’ve done. We believe in that enough to invest, and make that switch over, without having to deal with all of kinks and issues that any expanding business would deal with.”

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Jordan Hinshaw:
On the other side, yes, supplies. There’s actually a glut of a material right now. I think last year, industrial hemp acreage increased to about 125,000 acres in the nation, up from the tens of thousands a few years back. 60% plus of that didn’t have scheduled offtake. So, you’ve got a lot of material out there, that’s going to actually push down the price the more of it you use. But, you just need to be organized supply chain wise, where your processing is within range of where you’re doing it, and you’re able to coordinate all the pricing, so that you can guarantee that, “Hey McDonald’s, you will have it, as we say it will be,” for example.

Creating Hemptensils hemp utensils

Matt Baum:
Let me ask you, as far as… I was reading the press cue you guys have coming out, and it sounds like this utensil thing, people are pretty excited about this. I thought it was cool as hell. But, take me through it. We don’t have to do the hardcore science or anything, but take me through the process, like, the hemp comes in and it ends up as plastic. How does that work? That just sounds nuts.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, pretty cool stuff. Essentially, anytime you work with the stalks of the plant, the lignocellulose, you have an opportunity to extract the sugars from it, which build the starches. In that process, you’re creating the same polymers that are used in petroleum plastic. It’s when they make it from oil or in a large amount of cases, natural gas.

Matt Baum:
Literally the same polymers? Like no difference? That’s-

Jordan Hinshaw:
Similar. There are differences, depending on the formulation that you use. There’s mixes of sugarcane, of cornstarch, of different materials that have different properties, and they tend to… You tend to trade off between sturdiness or toughness versus flexibility, which has been a pretty big challenge for a lot of a lot of our products. Where, the more hemp fiber you have in it, the stronger and lighter weight it is by density, but oftentimes it doesn’t have that type of like pop-pop capability that people are often used to.

Matt Baum:
Basically, you’re not using the leaves, you’re using the stems, and you’re de-coordinating them, if you will.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Decorticating. Yes, that’s-

Matt Baum:
Decorticating, got it.

Jordan Hinshaw:
… That’s a word if you type into Word, it will always have a little red squiggly underneath it.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, yeah. I even practiced saying it, and I still got it wrong. That’s great. But from that point, it comes in as like little pellets basically, that you’re turning it into? Then those pellets, are you literally melting them into forms from there?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. That’s the process, whether by injection or extrusion, in some cases some compression molding and thermoforming, to heat it to 190 degrees, 210, 240, and press it into an extremely heavy tooling. In some cases, 1400 pound steel item that is water cooled around it, so that once it goes in, it’s able to pop out as the perfect shape of what you made it, designed to be.

Matt Baum:
Just like you would with plastic basically, but no petroleum.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, yeah, a very similar process. Absolutely. The only difference obviously is in processing temperatures, and cycle times, and aspects that have to do with how the material wears on the tooling. So, it’s not as transferable, where in a lot of cases, the material dictates how you actually build the tooling. Ours are unique to these types of materials.

Comparing hemp bioplastic and petro-plastic

Matt Baum:
Let me ask you differences between this hemp plastic and petroleum plastic. Is it a matter of like strength or transparency? What are the major differences? Are there pros, cons? Let’s just take the ecology side out of it for a minute, and just discuss raw pros and cons of stability, what it looks like, stuff like that.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. So, the material we’ve been working with has a really natural color to it, that natural hemp brown. So, transparent items have not been… We’ve not been able to achieve that aspect. But, you can always add color additives that are nontoxic, if you so choose, to make it black or brown or blue, whatever other colors that are optional.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, clear is not really an option yet.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Not in hemp, no. Obviously, the biomass itself has that natural tinge, and so you’d be hard pressed to try to make that-

Matt Baum:
It’s green, right? What are you going to do?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah, exactly. But luckily, it’s a nice hazelnut color, hazelnut hemp.

Matt Baum:
Cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, it’s kind of got a nice visual aesthetic to it. So, we’re not too ashamed of that.

A message from Canvas 1839

Matt Baum:
Let’s take a quick break, to talk about our partner this week, Canvas 1839, centered out of Austin, Texas, which also happens to be the de facto home of Ministry of Hemp, because Kit lives there. Canvas strives to make products with the highest efficacy based on proprietary science, with the help of their Chief Science Officer and Stanford grad. Dr. Kyle Hammerick’s pioneering work in nanoscale biology. Canvas currently offers a relief oil that is crafted with Colorado grown, full spectrum hemp extract, grown under organic practices to support your wellbeing in mind and body.

Matt Baum:
Each one ounce bottle contains 300 milligrams of CBD, which is 10 milligrams per dropper. Now, they sent me a bottle and I have to say, normally, 10 milligrams of CBD isn’t enough for me, but I’ve really been enjoying it. I’ve been taking the relief oil in the mornings with my coffee, and I feel like it brings me in for a soft landing, as I get to work. I’m focused and I’m awake, but the Canvas relief oil keeps me from my usual ADD morning coffee rush. It’s actually helped with some of the aches and pains that I’ve been dealing with, since I started boxing training again.

Matt Baum:
They also offer a luxurious relief cream that is specifically formulated for optimal transdermal penetration and absorption, which means, when you rub it on your skin, it actually goes into your skin. It leaves a very clean skin field with no residue whatsoever. There’s 500 milligrams of CBD in each two jar. My wife, who’s an aerobics instructor and owns a gym has been using it, and she loves it. It’s become a part of her post-workout shower regime. Canvas is a company that is just doing it right. That’s why we’re proud to partner with them. They know their farmers, they have third party lab results readily available. Right now, you can get 15% off your order, just for being a listener to this show. Head to Canvasrelief.com and use the code Friend15, and you get 15% off your purchase.

Matt Baum:
I would recommend their starter pack. That features the two products they sent me, the relief oil and the relief cream, and both are fantastic. That’s Friend15, all one word. Of course, I will have a link to Canvasrelief.com in the show notes, for this episode. Now, back to the show.

Bioplastics vs. fossil fuels

Jordan Hinshaw:
Besides that, obviously the heat implications, depending on product thickness, it’s designed to allow heat and bacteria to eat away at it.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, while it holds up on a shelf just fine for years, if you do apply it to higher pressure, a higher heat environment, it’s going to start to soften in a way that actually no other plastic really does. We did some testing on some basic corn plastics, and they tend to break at a certain temperature change.

Matt Baum:
They get real brittle, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
[crosstalk 00:19:16] shaped. Yeah, brittle. Whereas the hemp plastic, actually, it doesn’t get brittle, it gets really elastic. It’s really flexible.

Matt Baum:
Really?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. So, we were testing it out, we dumped it in boiling waters for a period of time. All we had to do was dip it back in cold water and it solidified right back into it’s shape, and we were able to bang it against the table.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
It was really interesting.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool. Do you think that’s a difference in sugar content of the corn versus the hemp basically?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. The content of the hemp itself, the nature of fibers, just their resilience lends towards that more flexibility under pressure, rather than just snapping overall.

Matt Baum:
Sure. So, what about raw strength of the product itself? How does that compare to like plastic? Is it stronger, the same, not quite as strong? What are we talking?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Rank well, as it’s stronger. There’s evidence there since the ’40s, where they were doing a Ford, if you’ve ever heard of that experiment, he was putting it in his-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, his car and stuff, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
In the walls of his car, and taking hammers to it. That’s actually still been going on. I believe Mercedes, if not BMW, has a line of doors, their lining that’s more than carbon fiber, it’s hemp fiber.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. I just interviewed those guys actually a couple of weeks ago.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Very nice. Essentially, strength is never a trade off. You’re actually increasing your density. So, compared to most of the exact same weight, you’re going to have a stronger product for certain. The main differences are more chemical based where, there’s a lot of compatiblizers, additives and such that they add, that often have these toxins and stuff. Without getting too much into it, that can affect temperature and barrier properties, where they’re able to resist more caustic environments.

Matt Baum:
Right, right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
These are for your lunch at the break room.

Matt Baum:
Right. This is stuff that you want to disappear when you throw it away. You don’t want it to stick around forever.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
Speaking of temperature, obviously plastic burns at a certain temperature, and it gives off all kinds of caustic fumes and stuff. What about hemp plastic? Does it burn the same? What happens when you apply fire to it?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Like you said, with little petroleum plastics, and it’s a great question, they do emit a lot of greenhouse gases as they burn up or break down. Carbon dioxide is released as a process of breaking down most… That’s when they say it’s carcinogenic, whatever. But, the hemp itself is more of a plant based matter. So, it has less of a negative impact in that way. But that being said, I have not actually set these on fire on purpose. So, I’ll have to add that to the list.

Matt Baum:
Would you be willing to burn something right now?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right. You know what? That’s a great point.

The biodegradability of hemp plastic

Matt Baum:
I’m just curious. You start thinking about the ecology side, which I want to talk about next. Obviously, this stuff isn’t meant to be permanent. The idea is, this is temporary packaging for a cupcake, or your lunch, or something like that. What’s the difference if I take, let’s say a hemp packaging that is like a bag, for example, and I bury it next to a plastic bag in my backyard, or maybe I don’t even bury it, I sit them outside in my backyard. That plastic bag is going to be different thousands of years. How long… What happens to this hemp bag? How long does it take to break down?

Jordan Hinshaw:
In an aerobic environment like that, where it’s just sitting on top of the ground-

Matt Baum:
Right. Aerobic meaning air can get to it, right?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Sorry, say it again?

Matt Baum:
Aerobic meaning air can get to it more or less.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Right, right, right. You’re still going to be facing dozens of years, where the hemp plastic will hang around, because it’s actually more about the bacteria and the soil, like the environment itself, that’s allowing it to become a food source for, well I wouldn’t say fauna, but for the environment around it. So, what you’re really looking for is for it to be able to get back into the food chain, or the environment of soil or dirt or, and obviously ideally a compost. But, if it does get in those environments with ability to break down, then it could be as short as six months.

Matt Baum:
Wow.

Jordan Hinshaw:
How I see it evaporate.

Matt Baum:
That’s crazy.

Jordan Hinshaw:
The trade off there… Yeah, it’s pretty big. That’s why we’re really concentrated on pushing this element because, we understand that there’s a ton of politicians, a ton of legislation that is looking to solve all these problems of getting away from plastics, but that requires development of these composting centers, circular economies, and production of plant based materials.

Matt Baum:
So, I can compost. I compost on my backyard right now. I can compost this. If you send me something in hemp plastic, I can take it out, eat it, have a nice little meal and then throw the scraps, the vegetable scraps and the bag into my compost, and it’ll break down.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. About half of all the industrial composting centers, they do that on a pretty regular basis. I think it’s important that we try to move away from recycling.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Not move away from it necessarily, but look to materials that are going to provide some alternatives, just for the obvious reason that for one, a lot of recycling doesn’t get done. And then two, these plant based materials actually are not ideal for recycling. These are designed to be that type of degradable material. So, we’ve got some different experiments going on right now, we’ve got the B5511, which is an [inaudible 00:25:29] one, where they’re doing it in a backyard compost center. Then, there’s a few different methods that we’re testing out, so that we can really get a hard number on exactly how long they’ll take. But, that’s the idea. We really want to see higher quality compost going on, and we want to give them the feed stock that makes that possible.

The demand for hemp plastic utensils

Matt Baum:
And making a temporary product, like you said, that we don’t have to worry about. When you’re done with it, you don’t have to feel guilty. Speaking of which, let’s talk about the utensils. You guys have a big thing coming out right now. You just partnered with British Columbia. Can you name who it is yet, or is it still let’s keep it under wraps?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Well, we’ve already been under a distribution agreement with them, so it’s not necessarily a secret. It’s a company called Follow The Leader Distribution Company. They were really adamant about offering new eco-friendly solutions for packaging in that legal cannabis market there, and have since expanded. So, we were wanting to make sure that we sent them what they needed to that market there. Obviously, without overshooting, I’d say that the Canadians are in the advanced awareness state or acceptance state of the challenges of climate change, and are constantly looking to invest and find ways to bring those to fruition.

Jordan Hinshaw:
We’ve got a number of distributors that are spread out, and it just happens at two of them are in Canada, one there in BC, and a new one that we’re working on in Toronto. So, it’s no secret or anything, but it was encouraging to know that companies from all around the globe have been reaching out to us to see, “Hey, what can we do?” Which is just ironic in the sense that, we’re here in one of the top economies in the world, and these other countries are saying, “Hey, let’s-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, we like to make fun of Canada, like they’re our little brother, but they typically make us look pretty bad when it comes to stuff like climate science.

Jordan Hinshaw:
You got it.

Matt Baum:
It’s sad, unfortunately. Now, tell me about the utensils. How did you develop this? It’s like a fork, and a spork and a spoon, but they’re made of hemp plastic. It almost looks like they’re made out of wood, because of the color you said, that they have, and straws as well, hemp straws. Tell me they’re better than paper straws, because paper straws, they’re the worst.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Absolutely, yeah. The hemp straws are the big winner. We’re trying to get that prepared for a much larger scale launch because, we understand there’s just so many bars, restaurants, places of business, that are looking for an-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, absolutely, coffee shops.

Jordan Hinshaw:
… Alternative. In my mom’s generation, they were using paper straws, so it’s not a revolutionary thing to have them, and nobody liked them then either.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, they were garbage.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. The ideas, bamboo… I go to the store and cost-plus goods, and they’ve got bamboo straws that they’re selling for $1 a unit. We just knew that there’s got to be a middle ground there between the paper straws, which are doing a good thing and, and trying to reduce that. But using hemp as a feedstock, a material not neither a crop, a food crop nor forestry, rather than that paper. So, we’ve been experimenting with that for the last six weeks, and trying to get everything on point to break that the hemp straw out.

Matt Baum:
That’s so cool.

Jordan Hinshaw:
As far as the utensils, I’ve got a partner who helps with the CAD design, and try to engineer it based on material specs. Then, you get a large EDM machine out and start cutting steel. There’s steps and stages, but it’s been a fun process for sure.

Matt Baum:
My wife and I, we have those metal straws you can buy, and that’s great, you’re not throwing away plastic. But, you are introducing more metal straws, that are also made with gnarly chemicals, and they’re to be around forever. Whereas like the bamboo straw, like you said, great idea, too expensive. It’s just too expensive. Bamboo is an amazing plant, but it doesn’t grow as fast as hemp. It’s not as cheap and easy to grow. The same thing with reusable bags, and water bottles and stuff like that, it’s great, and we should be doing that stuff. But, we’re also creating an army of bags and water bottles, that will be around for the next 100,000 years, you know?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah.

The future of GreenTek Packaging

Matt Baum:
So, what do you think the future is for you guys? Where do you go from here? What’s next?

Jordan Hinshaw:
It’s really interesting that you say that. I think with the reusable bags, there’s some stat. You’ve got to use them at least 28 times for them to even justify, because of the additional industrial waste or impact from making them. A lot of steel, the metals are no different in that way. That’s the idea is that, we believe that hemp itself is that carbon neutral solution. So, obviously as it grows, especially purpose grown for fiber, it absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than any other crop.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, what you’re finding is that, by growing it and then using it in manufacturing processes, which often in bioplastics already have lower emissions, you’re striking basically a sustainable supply chain. So, that’s kind of what we’re focused on. We’re trying to say, “Listen, it’s not just about the actual bioplastic result, and the fact that it’s better at the end of life. It’s about the entire chain, and how we’re using our domestic economy to its fullest, our own agricultural resources to develop products, innovate in those products, and become more independent as a nation, creating jobs, all that.” So, that’s our focus. We’ve got some different pilot programs for some technology to be developed, that’s going to make it as cost competitive as possible. But, we just understand that it’s an invigorating leg up for America.

Matt Baum:
Definitely, definitely.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, that’s kind of where we see ourselves going.

Matt Baum:
How far away am I from hemp plastic bags in my grocery store? What am I talking 5 years, 15 years? What do you think?

Jordan Hinshaw:
Certainly within five years, I think you could see that. I know there are some groups that are already trying to develop some blown film options with that. Again, I think it’s going to be a matter of which companies buy-in, to lock in those kinds of purchase orders, and justify those supply chains first. But, I think within the next five years, you’re going to see some options that are those lines. If it took 10, then it was a policy problem. It was something to do with-

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Jordan Hinshaw:
… Our nation not invigorating and pushing for these types of things. But, there’s some cool stuff coming down the wire.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool to hear you say that though, because just to hear someone that’s in the industry say like, “Yeah, we can do this, and it is going to take a few years, but it’s not going to take 10 years. We’re learning, we’re kicking ass here, and it’s more a matter of don’t hold us back, than it is, we need to come up with brand new technology and the future we’re talking about.” I’m really happy to hear you say that. Let me ask you, what is the one plastic product that you are most excited about replacing with hemp plastics, that you think makes the biggest difference in the world?

Bioplastics and a more sustainable world

Jordan Hinshaw:
The biggest difference in the world? Well, let’s start from top down. If you look at 50% of all plastics that are made, those are usually single use. So, you’re really talking about these subscription food boxes, these take to go boxes and take out.

Matt Baum:
Yes.

Jordan Hinshaw:
You’re looking at things that are consumed in the pounds per day, per person, that really would impact the waste that’s gathering up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now. Some of the most common ones are our medical containers, pharmaceuticals and such, that really could be made from bioplastic materials, and are shipping out again all around the world. Being here in Long Beach, when I go to the beach, which I love my city, but it’s not one of the cleanest beaches by far.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, I’ve been there. I know what you mean.

Jordan Hinshaw:
That’s what you find.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. You find hypodermic needles and pill boxes and stuff, yeah, unfortunately.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Unfortunately. It doesn’t make me happy. But, those are some of the things that I think, if those were integrated from renewable resources, you’d have a real acknowledgeable impact in plastic waste.

Matt Baum:
Making a real change. You’re absolutely right. It’s that crap that we don’t think about, that we use every day, the container for your pills, the container your lunch came in, and stuff like that. How far off do you think we are from developing a clear plastic? Is that out of the question or is it just a matter of like, “Hey, we’ll figure it out. It’s coming.”

Jordan Hinshaw:
Again, it’s just material sources. When you’re talking about bioplastics in general, there’s a lot of options, from the material for tapioca all the way to sugarcane.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Now they’ve got some mycelium with mushrooms, and different options.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, that’s really cool too. They’re doing a lot of stuff there.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Yeah. We’ve been wanting to work with them for some time. They’re so overwhelmed with demand themselves, that you’ve got to go down there and knock on their door in-person.

Matt Baum:
I’m sure. That’s a good problem to have though. That means they’re busy. That means they’re kicking ass, hopefully.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s a product that people want, and it’s a classy product. It’s a really nice looking final product. But no, my point just being that, is that technology coming? Yes. Is it something in the immediate future? I don’t think so. If you choose to do it with some of the older materials, obviously bioplastics have been around for much longer than you’d imagine, when you don’t involve the hemp itself, you can find some clearer plastics. I think World Centric makes some clear bioplastics, although I’m not sure exactly what their formulation is, in terms of petrol, corn, whatever the balance may be.

Matt Baum:
But, you’re saying there’s no reason why there couldn’t be a combination of two things. You have your hemp plastic thing on the bottom, and then on top, maybe you have a mycelium plastic or some other type of bioplastic.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Exactly, yeah. Again, it’s just going from, right now, I think 1% of all plastics are made from bio renewable resources. So, it’s going from that to an increase in margin, increase in part of the market, where you’re going to find those type of combinations and solutions are more prevalent.

Matt Baum:
I ask because I was a chef for a long time, and working in kitchens, clear plastics, we literally go through tons of that stuff. You’ve got to be able to see what’s in it. So, when you’re in a hurry, you open it up and there’s a bag of label that and you can see it’s perfectly good, we’ll just grab it and go. When that bag is empty, you can’t reuse it because the health code won’t even let you. That’s against the law. You have to throw that crap away. Every time I did it, it just felt gross. Every time you wrap something in cling wrap, every time you threw something in a freezer bag, and you thought it out and then you just throw it away, it’s perfectly good, it’s going to be around for the next 50,000 years, but you can’t use it again. That’s the kind of stuff that’s another single use plastics, if we can start to replace that.

Jordan Hinshaw:
That’s what the overarching… GreenTek Packaging, obviously we focus on the division, and manufacturing these products, developing them, and providing them to the market, but in reality, GreenTek Planet is like, “Well, let’s combine those different resources.” Like for example, with the cellophanes, you’ve got some seaweed aspects there, that are moving towards making these thinner, more clear or see-through materials. Those are going to be the type of advances that cover a lot of the more unseen or low weight solutions for the bags and the options that you’re talking about. I think that that’s really where the pendulum is going to need to swing, to see those turtle suffocating items, not end up in the cycle. Again, I’m not sure to what level or what advancement specifically is going to turn that tide, but I know that we are a part of the group that’s pushing for that.

Jordan Hinshaw:
So, obviously it’s been a great opportunity to chat with you, and I’m thankful that we did connect. We’ve been doing a lot in terms of outreach, and understanding that while some of the larger companies are going to be challenges to knock the door of, it’s a grassroots movement. It’s the people behind this that really make this a viable objective. So, as far as plugging us, I’d say, come reach out if you guys are interested. If anybody has any custom projects or ideas that they want to see come to fruition, we’re available, Greentekplanet.com, and shop utensils, if people wanted to buy some of the products.

Jordan Hinshaw:
Our big push and our big reason for doing businesses is to impact disadvantaged communities. I came from one, the north side of Long Beach, and I understand that the waste ends up in these places, I understand that the jobs don’t go to these places, and that the community needs help. So, working with that, there’s a lot of community events, a lot of cleanups, a lot of food giveaways. We were doing some last week that… I just really want to be able to connect with the city on, and my team on. So, if there’s any questions, I’d definitely be open.

Matt Baum:
Cool. It sounds like you guys are doing it right. You’re buying American, you’re using American hemp, you’re repurposing waste hemp to do this stuff, you’re putting jobs in the community, this is the dream, right? This is what it’s all about. Let’s get-

Jordan Hinshaw:
Living the dream brother.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
Yeah, let’s get behind this people, come on. I want to send huge, thanks to Jordan for coming on the show. I will have links to GreenTek Packaging in the show notes for this episode, so you can check out all the cool things they’re doing over there. Like he said, if you have custom needs and you want to work with hemp plastic, they are the company to contact. Now, not to get too political here, but listen to what he was saying about American jobs, and working in the community, and using American hemp, and keeping it all here without any need for petroleum, and other gnarly chemicals that are not only bad for the environment, but we even outsource from other countries. I can’t think of anything more American than what is going on in the hemp movement right now, with companies like GreenTek Packaging. I’m just happy they’re out there.

Matt Baum:
(Singing)

Matt Baum:
That’s about it for this episode. But again, I want to thank Canvas CBD for partnering with us. Don’t forget, go to Canvasrelief.com, use the code Friend15, for 15% off your purchase, and let them know that you want to help them, and you think it’s awesome that they are supporting ministryofhemp.com. Speaking of supporting ministryofhemp.com, if you like what we’re doing here, and you think that hemp can probably change the world, head overdue Patreon\ministryofhemp, and become a Ministry of Hemp insider. Any amount you give makes you an insider, and it gives you access to early articles, podcast extras, and all kinds of other stuff. But more than that, it helps us get the good word of hemp out to other people.

Matt Baum:
Also, leave us a star rating, or a written review on wherever you’re listening to the podcast. This show is available anywhere you can download podcasts, and your reviews and star ratings and thumbs up or whatever they have, it really helps put us in front of other listeners. But, we don’t just do it for listeners either. Here at the Ministry of Hemp, we believe that an accessible world is a better world for everyone. So, we have a full written transcript for this episode in the show notes, over at ministryofhemp.com. Speaking of ministryofhemp.com, don’t forget to check out our latest article on the best CBD pre-rolls of 2020 that I mentioned in the beginning of the show.

Matt Baum:
If that’s not enough, you can always find us on all our social medias, at Ministryofhemp\ministryofhemp. We’re always kicking out great links to quality companies, quality news stories, and good old hemp education. All right. It’s time for me to get out of here, and I like to end the show the same way every week. I like to say, remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions will you? This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp, signing off.

The post Bioplastics And Hemp Utensils With GreenTek Packaging appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

In this week’s episode, our host Matt talks to Mark Reinders, CEO of HempFlax, one of Europe’s largest industrial hemp producers. Hempflax uses almost every part of the hemp plant to make everything from CBD products to pet bedding, plastics, and insulation. They talk about the history of hemp prohibition and how Europe’s hemp industry got a 20-year head start on the U.S.

In the show, Matt also mentions our new introduction to CBG. Check it out!

About Mark Reinders and HempFlax

Mark Reinders is CEO of HempFlax, Europe’s largest independent grower and processor of industrial hemp in Europe.

HempFlax has operations across Europe, with over 2,200 hectares of hemp expected to be harvested in 2020. Processing the whole hemp plant enables HempFlax to maximize revenues across their six business lines: Nutraceuticals; Hemp-based Plastic Replacement; Construction; Animal Care; Horticulture and; Genetics & Cultivation.

Mark has been with the company since 2008 and was appointed CEO in 2016. From 2016 to 2019, he also served as president of the European Industrial Hemp Association, Europe’s foremost coalition of the industrial hemp-processing industry. He remains on the board of directors today.

Brought to you by Receptra

Thanks to our partners at Receptra for making this week’s episode possible. Try Receptra Serious Rest 25 to help you get deeper, better sleep. This unique product combines top-quality CBD with chamomile. Matt shares his experience with Receptra Serious Rest in this episode, and we’ll have a full review coming later this month.

Want to try Receptra? Use coupon code MOH15 to get 15% off your order!

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

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Hemp in Europe: Complete Episode Transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 52 of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, “Hemp in Europe”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum and this is The Ministry of Hemp podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education. Before we get started today, I just want to say thank you to our partners at Receptra. Receptra is one of the brands that we partner with on ministryofhemp.com and later on in the show I’m going to tell you all about their Serious Rest gel capsules and Serious Rest chamomile tinctures. I’ve been using them myself and I really like them and you can find their whole line of high-quality CBD products over at receptranaturals.com. Thanks again to Receptra for partnering with us and helping us to bring you this show.

Matt Baum:
Speaking of this show, today my conversation is with Mark Reinders of HempFlax. HempFlax might not be a name you are familiar with, but they’re one of Europe’s largest hemp purveyors. They do everything. You’ll hear us talk about it, but they are involved in so many different aspects of the hemp world that allows them to use the entire plant, including the dust that comes off of the plant while they are creating hemp fiber. It’s incredible. Now you may be asking yourself, “Matt, why are we talking about hemp in Europe when we’re supposed to be focused on hemp in the United States.” Well, we are still focused on the hemp in the United States and trust me, this conversation’s going to all come back around to that, but I thought it would be really cool to talk to someone working in the industry in a country that is a lot more hemp friendly.

Matt Baum:
Now, that’s not to say we’re not hemp friendly here, it’s supposed to be legal, but as you know the FDA and the United States government have not exactly been leading the charge on how all of this hemp is going to be regulated in the States, short of letting the States shake it out on our end. A similar thing is happening in the European Union and the UK as well. You’ll hear more about that shortly. Let’s get right into it. This is my conversation with Mark Reinders. He’s the CEO of HempFlax, Europe’s largest independent grower and processor of industrial hemp. HempFlax has operations across Europe, with over 2,200 hectares of hemp expected to be harvested in 2020. Mark has been with the company since 2008 and was appointed CEO in 2016. From 2016 to 2018, he also served as President of the European Industrial Hemp Association, which is Europe’s foremost coalition of the industrial hemp processing industry. He remains on that board of directors today. Needless to say, Mark knows what he’s talking about. Here is my conversation with Mark Reinders.

An introduction to hemp in Europe

Matt Baum:
Now, HempFlax is not a name that we really know in the United States, but you guys are gigantic. Can you tell us a little bit about what HempFlax does?

Mark Reinders:
Yes, I can. We are in the business for 25 years already in growing, harvesting, and processing industrial hemp and we are one of the pioneers of the post-war industrial hemp industry in Europe. We are founded in 1994 with entrepreneur Ben Dronkers and Ben founded HempFlax in his vision to bring industrial hemp back as being a legal industrial crop. He saw the possibilities of hemp from the Hemp Museum in Amsterdam. He’s also the founder and owner of the Hemp Museum in Amsterdam and Barcelona. There he learned about the past uses of hemp in the Golden Age. The big sailing ships had ropes and sails made from hemp fiber.

Matt Baum:
Right, right.

Mark Reinders:
Sailors were dressed in hemp fiber based clothing. The brewings in the ship was made with hemp. As you know, after the Prohibition industrial hemp completely disappeared.

Matt Baum:
Let’s talk about that for just a second. I’m curious, was there the same hemp prohibition in Europe that we saw in the United States? Because right after World War II, hemp pretty much vanished and was treated very much like marijuana as a crop and has slowly been coming back. Same thing in Europe?

Mark Reinders:
Yeah. It was a worldwide global thing hemp, because it was the prohibition on UN basis. There were some countries, for example like France, they had some kind of exemption in that time already. The big revival of industrial hemp happened in the late 80s, early 90s, when more and more countries changed their legislations in such a way that made possible for farmers to grow industrial hemp. To be very clearly on that, they did not remove cannabis from the scheduled list, but they made exemption rules industrial hemp. In the Netherlands, for example, the prohibition is not valid for hemp that’s meant for fiber and seed production, as long it’s grown in the open soil, outdoors, and that’s how the Netherlands dealt with it. The problem we have today in the world is each country is making their own exemptions on the prohibition, because the prohibition of the scheduling of cannabis is still in place.

Mark Reinders:
That’s why we are looking very forward to the United Nations single convention meeting that should’ve taken place last year, being postponed in March and now it’s being postponed in December, that cannabis is getting descheduled as soon as possible as an industrial crop, so we are not falling under the convention rules anymore.

Matt Baum:
Can I ask, is it similar to the States where they say that hemp is basically anything with a certain amount of THC or below and then anything above that is still scheduled? Is it similar?

Mark Reinders:
Yeah. Now, the exemption rules are same, but we are still, let’s say, under the prohibition of the single convention, but the exemption rules are based on 0.2% THC. US and the States 0.3. We have European countries mostly 0.2. You have some countries like Swiss, for example, made one percent rules, but 0.2 is the general rule in Europe.

Matt Baum:
Here we’re dealing with a very similar issue that you are, but it’s state by state. The United States hasn’t ruled as a federal agency on hemp yet, so we have states making different rules for hemp, which is ridiculous and hopefully it sounds like you guys are about to get out of that. I think we’re stuck in it for a little bit here. But because you were able-

Mark Reinders:
Right. In Europe, we have the same thing. Not every country has the same rules.

Matt Baum:
Right. Of course.

Mark Reinders:
Except you have … Also, they’re on state level differences. In the Netherlands, for example, we are not able to harvest the flowers and the leaves for CBD production.

Matt Baum:
Really?

Mark Reinders:
The Dutch exemption is only valid for fiber and seed production, so I’m not touching the leaves and the flowers and the dust crops. But, if I go 10 kilometers in that direction, meaning east-

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
… I’m in Germany and we have crops in Germany as well, because we’re that close to the border. In Germany, it’s industrial hemp. It doesn’t matter if you use it for the roots or the fiber or the seeds or the leaves and the flower, as long as you stay below 0.2%.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
It’s industrial hemp and growing at a farm. We don’t care what you do with it. I think that’s how it should be, because it’s really strange that governments are for you deciding what to do with the crop and what not.

Matt Baum:
Right. Especially a crop that’s not a drug at this point, that is essentially harmless from everything we’re finding. Can I ask, is that why you have locations in Germany and Romania and the Netherlands? It’s because different places are … The rules are different basically and you can do different things there. Is that the case?

Mark Reinders:
No, we didn’t choose different locations because of the rules, because Germany and the Netherlands was already there because of the geographic location of the factor.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
Because of what I said, we are really on the border of the Dutch-German border. Our growing area is 50 kilometers around the factory because the transport of raw materials, the straw, is a very voluminous product, so it takes a lot of trucks to do that, so high transport cost. That’s why we try to keep our growing area as close as possible to the factory. That’s why we have a part in Germany as well. Of course, now as a coincidence and change in the difference and rules and regulations we have in the [inaudible 00:09:14] that we can grow CBD in Germany as well. The Romanian factory, actually we started farming in Romania in 2012, because we were looking for expansion and we have to decide or we expand the Dutch factory, meaning putting a bigger production line in, but then we also needed more growing area to grow our crops.

Mark Reinders:
We suffered from a lot of competition for agriculture land around us, mostly by the bioenergy industry, the biomass and for biogas. We said, “Okay, we’re taking another location, more southly and different climate zone,” to one hand spread our climatal risk, because we’re operating here on more sea climate type in the Netherlands. Where Romania, we have a continental climate type and we are more southly, so we can harvest the seeds as well. In the northern European operations, we do not harvest the seeds because the hemp starts flowering four weeks later compared to Romania and then I end up in September with my harvest of the seeds in the Netherlands. I need three weeks of drying and retting in the fields and then I’m ending up in October and I need to get my stalks dry from the field. To get something dry from the field in the Netherlands in October is very difficult because of the climate. It’s very risky. Where Romania actually this weekend, we started harvesting the hemp and the seeds are ripe.

Matt Baum:
Oh, wow.

Mark Reinders:
Because of the continental climate, we have relatively dry, good weather up to November, so we have a lower harvest risk if we do seeds.

Matt Baum:
So it’s like just a much longer growing season where you can do different things-

Mark Reinders:
Yeah.

Matt Baum:
… overlapping each other basically?

Mark Reinders:
Because even more southly latitudes, we can sow earlier. In Romania, we’re sowing in the mid of March, end of March, where in the Netherlands we do end of April, mid of April.

Getting a head start on hemp

Matt Baum:
It sounds like HempFlax was founded in the 90s, so you guys had a much longer jump on the hemp business than we’ve had in the States. You’re one of the first fully veritably integrated hemp companies, is that correct?

Mark Reinders:
It’s correct. The reason we are veritably integrated is on the one hand we want to make the supply chain as short as possible. The more companies or chains you have in the supply chain, the more expensive the product gets.

Matt Baum:
Of course.

Mark Reinders:
Each chain has its profit margin being calculated over the profit margin of the previous chain. You get the so-called movement effect, it’s called in economics. The product gets too expensive.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
On the other hand, because we were the pioneers, we were one of the first, there was nothing there. If you want to bring something to the market you had to do it for yourself-

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
… from the seed to the end product. It starts in the farming with a special harvest. Believe me, in the first year as we tried every type of harvest that was out there commercially available and all of them we have destroyed completely because hemp is a very difficult crop to harvest. If you cannot buy something in the market you start building yourself something.

Matt Baum:
Sure. You may as well design it.

Mark Reinders:
Then you end up with a machine that’s pretty expensive, so the farmers are not likely to invest in it, especially when it’s a new crop and a new company. They’re curious in buying and investing in harvesting equipment, so we have to do it. In the factory as well and the end products as well. The other reason is that we do the harvest ourself is very quality based reason, because we have a very strong feeling that quality starts in the field and not in the factory.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Mark Reinders:
By controlling the harvest, we’re controlling the quality and this has to do with drying and retting. We are more likely to wait till after the rain to get a crop in, because we know we get a bit more retting and better quality fiber. Where a farmer says, “It’s going to rain next week,” I’d take the crop in now because then I have it in before the rain.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
It’s a normal thing for a farmer, but then you don’t have the best quality of fiber, because you need the fiber to be … You rett it a little bit.

Getting to know HempFlax

Matt Baum:
Let’s talk about what all HempFlax does. You’re involved in nutrition. You’re involved in animal husbandry. You’re involved in plastics, fibers. What don’t you guys do with hemp? It seems like you started from the root literally and you go all the way up to the flower. What was the first thing HempFlax invested in when this started?

Mark Reinders:
Well, the very first thing is we started separating the fiber and the core from each other. That was the first step, so-called decortication. We started in an old flax mill in the early 90s, but then we found out pretty quickly that the flax equipment was not suitable for processing hemp.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
We found out pretty fast that hemp needs specialized equipment. Also there we started developing decortication equipment to decorticate the hemp, so that’s why we have now a breaker mill system. Not hammer mill, but the breaker mill system, that breaks the fiber loose from the core and then we make a separation. And then we had raw fiber and shives. The shives were packed as horse bedding and the fiber went to the paper industry for cellulose, because it was raw, unrefined 80% pure fiber. It was not suitable for the automotive industry, not suitable for any application. While we were doing that, we started developing more equipment and we learned more how to do it and we were able to refine the fiber, get the fiber cleaner, so then we had new markets opening up. We ended in the automotive industry in supplying fiber for interior parts and for door panels as a fiberglass replacement that you need high-quality fiber. From the animal bedding, we also said, “Okay, we had horses.” We made small packages for cat litter-

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
… for rabbits, guinea pigs and so on. We started marketing in the retail, so we had equipment to pack in smaller size. Then, we start selling the fiber to an insulation manufacturer for making hemp insulation. We thought, “Hey, that’s nice. We can develop the market here as well.” We start buying back the fiber and we start selling the insulation here to build a market and recently, actually this is funny, in June, we were able to take over this company and is part of the group also to make the supply chain shorter.

Thanks to Receptra for sponsoring our podcast

Matt Baum:
Let’s take a quick break to talk about our podcast partner this week, Receptra Naturals. You can find them over at receptranaturals.com and of course I’ll have links in the show notes to tell you all about them. We’re super proud to be working with these guys because they make such high quality CBD products. Receptra has been around since 2015 and they’ve been operating with one major guiding principle and it’s super simple, the truth is curative. That’s Rusty Scott, the founder of Receptra Naturals said that. What they basically mean is the product that they represent on their label is exactly what you’re getting and it does what it says it does. In this case, they sent me some of their new Receptra Series Rest camomile tincture. This is a 25 mg dose, right? They have a very easy-to-read dosage dropper and one milliliter represents 25 mg of the Series Rest Nighttime CBD. This one comes in a vanilla mint flavor and it’s made with full spectrum hemp extract and chamomile to help you sleep.

Matt Baum:
I’ve been taking it for about two weeks now before I go to bed. I’m a very light sleeper and I have to say I’ve been sleeping very well, so I am going to be asking them for more of this. It is a fantastic product. The flavor is not overpowering by any means. You shake it before you take it. I take it about an hour before I go to bed and I can feel myself relaxing. Not so much getting drowsy like a sleep aid would make you, but relaxing and getting ready to go to bed and not worrying about all the stuff that’s in my head spinning around. Also, I find myself sleeping really comfortably and well. In the morning, I don’t wake up groggy. I don’t wake up feeling hungover, which is something that a lot of sleep aids do. I don’t feel cloudy at all. I just had nice restful sleep and like I said, no grogginess, no cloudiness. I don’t feel strange at all.

Matt Baum:
Their label features a QR code, where you can get the lab results, which is something we always push for, and the ingredients are right here. They’re very simple. Organic MCT oil, organic sunflower oil, Receptra hemp extract, organic flavors that include vanilla and peppermint, natural flavor of chamomile, valerian root extract and organic linalool. All right, I don’t know what that one is, but it is organic and it’s all written right there, which is good. Right now, the Receptra people are being so cool. You can head to receptranaturals.com, make an order and use the code MOH15. That’s capital M-O-H and the number 15 to get 15% off your order, just for being a Ministry of Hemp listener. You’re supporting a great company who is supporting The Ministry of Hemp and you’re going to get a better night’s sleep too. Everybody wins here. We can’t thank them enough for supporting our podcast. We love getting great brands to you guys. If you’re having trouble sleeping or you want to check out any of their other line of CBD products, head over to receptranaturals.com and again I will have that link featured in the show notes for this episode. Now back to my conversation with Mark Reinders.

How HempFlax uses all of the hemp plant

Mark Reinders:
To make a long story short, we use every single part of the hemp plant. We don’t throw away anything-

Matt Baum:
That’s amazing.

Mark Reinders:
… even the dust coming from the whole process. You can imagine if you do a lot of mechanized processing of those hemp stalks, you have a lot of dust, about 20% turns in dust and we call it hemp flour. That sounds a bit more expensive. We sell it as an additive to growing media and this growing media has been pelletized and being sold into the rose breeding industry-

Matt Baum:
That was amazing.

Mark Reinders:
… as growing medium. It’s even exported all over the world. My, let’s say, secondary revenue stream is being upgraded to a high-end growing medium being exported to Korea for rose breeding. We don’t throw away anything here. Everything is being used. That’s why we’re active in so much markets because literally we are an upside down factory. Normally, if you look a car factory, for example, you have a lot of parts and iron and the wheels, electronics and everything is being put together. All those thousands of parts being put together and end of the day you have one product, a car. We are all the way around. We have one raw material called hemp and that goes in a factory and we are separating and refining it in all these revenue streams. If I want it or not, I’m getting all these revenue streams and I have to sell it. For that reason, we are active in so many markets.

Mark Reinders:
Actually, the sales department is being split into business lines. We have a business line construction material being managed by people who know about construction material and have the know and experience. We have a business line animal care for the bedding and animal mattresses and wool and all kind of stuff. We have a business line industrial applications where we have nonwovens for door panels, boat fiber, compounds, pellets, granulates for inaction molding and compounding. That’s really the business line for industrial applications. We have a genetics business line where we sell our sowing seeds, but also our harvesting equipment, like the double cut combine we’re selling there. We have a business nutraceuticals that’s been defined into food and food supplements, where of course hemp seed oil, protein powder, but also the whole range of CBD products is being [inaudible 00:21:45] from CBD raw material into extracts, into premixes, up to white labeled, ready-to-consume products like tinctures and capsules.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
We have a business line horticultural, where we sell the growing media, the growing medium enhancers and mulch layers for flower pots and top soil. Definitely have a look at our website, because there’s really too much to mention-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, there’s a lot.

Mark Reinders:
… in one [crosstalk 00:22:11].

Matt Baum:
There is a lot going on. It kind of looks like you guys started … You looked at what you were doing fiber and said, “Well, where else can we take this part of the plant and plug it into the world,” and you found little pieces, mostly recently insulation. That’s a Germany company that you guys bought, is that correct?

Mark Reinders:
Yeah, that’s correct.

Sustainable construction with hemp

Matt Baum:
What is that like moving into something like that? Did someone approach you and say, “Hey, we could use this to make insulation,” or did you approach this from your point of view and say, “We can make insulation and we should buy it and control it ourselves, there’s a huge market here”?

Mark Reinders:
No, actually this specific company [inaudible 00:22:51], was working with hemp insulation for a long time. Actually, they were the pioneers in hemp insulation. We used to supply them with a lot of fiber in the past and then one time there came an opportunity. The current investor wants to quit and wants to shut down the company, so we said, “Okay, if you want to shut down, we want to take it over because we feel comfortable this market has a future.” What you see these days, the whole COVID thing realized people more than ever before that we have to change the way of living.

Matt Baum:
Yes, absolutely.

Mark Reinders:
Not that we have to go back to Middle Ages and stop living. No, we can still live. We can still enjoy a warm house and a good insulated house, but we can also do that with different type of materials.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
Doesn’t always need to be a synthetic material or a mineral material with a lot of CO2 emission in the production. We can also make a good housing with good thermal properties with better materials, because you have to realize at the moment you insulate your house, you’re CO2 saving at that moment already. We have a negative CO2 balance. Even you add all the CO2 emissions we have for transport, processing, harvesting, field work, and so on, the crop took more CO2 from the air than we are emitting in our production process.

Matt Baum:
That’s amazing.

Mark Reinders:
If you look at the CO2 balance of a mineral wall where you have to crush stone and melt it and make fiber out of it or glass wall insulation or synthetic insulation, they’re very high CO2 footprints in the production. Of course, with insulation in a house it saves energy in the summer or in the winter, sorry.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
Not in the summer, because it’s not keeping your house cool. It is ineffective. It’s a sustainability [inaudible 00:24:35].

Matt Baum:
Right. You’re starting off underwater basically. You’re starting off with something-

Mark Reinders:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
… that may cost CO2 just to build before you crush it into something else, so that’s incredible.

Mark Reinders:
Yeah, that’s the whole thing about our material because it’s good already for day one, because otherwise if you insulate your house with rock wool, for example, your house needs to save energy for a couple of years before it’s earned back its own energy for production. In the world, if you talk about sustainability too many times we look at the sustainability if a product is in use. There’s electrical cars on the street or the house is insulated, but we believe and I think that’s the only valid methodology to talk about sustainability is the lifecycle assessment. Look at the total lifecycle of a product, what impact that gives on our planet and our environment and on our climate. Because if you just look at the news, we just had in the Netherlands 18 days of summer heat that’s more than 25 degrees. That’s very special for the Netherlands. We never had that in the history of meteorology measurements. The five hottest summers since the measurements were taken of the climate to place … The three hottest summers took place in the last five years.

Matt Baum:
Wow.

Mark Reinders:
We see the melting of the polar ice is going faster and faster every year. On the other hand, the whole COVID pandemic where people had to lockdown, air transportation shut down, we saw how quickly the air quality improves again in cities and in environments. We also learned how regenerative the world can be. Of course, I’m not saying we can undo the climate change in one year. It will take decades and probably generations to do that, but if we don’t start today what will happen.

Matt Baum:
Right. Every day we don’t start we push things back probably another five or 10 years.

Mark Reinders:
We have alternatives. We can’t say because we’re … The alternatives are there and of course in volume we are still very small, but imagine what we can do if the concept we have like HempFlax is being bigger and being used in more countries. Therefore, again, we need to have clear legislative environment-

Matt Baum:
Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Reinders:
… where industrial hemp is not falling on any prohibition. It’s free to use. Because only then we can succeed and we can accelerate our growing and we can bring those products to the market that’s so necessary these days.

Using hemp in cars instead of plastic

Matt Baum:
You’re working in replacing plastic parts in cars. You’re working in insulation. What is adoption like right now? Are companies open to this idea? It seems we’re a little resistant here in the States and I think quite honestly it’s only because there aren’t more companies like HempFlax in the States that are able to do this. We’re still building this infrastructure. What’s it like in Europe? When you came to car companies and said, “Hey, we can replace all those plastic knobs with hemp plastic.” Are they adopting this? Are they going for it?

Mark Reinders:
That reminds me, I didn’t answer the question before, because those developments was initiating it. A lot of time companies are reaching out to us. “Hey listen, we have a product now. We’re using glass fiber, we are using mineral fiber, synthetic fiber, can we replace it with you,” and off you make a product out of it together with the development of that company.

Matt Baum:
That’s cool.

Mark Reinders:
That’s how it went with the car companies and car companies first said, “Hey, we can’t use this fiber in this way,” because they were used to glass fiber and glass fiber is every day the same because it’s not dependent on the weather, it’s not dependent on the climate. It’s every day same length, same quality. Where a natural fiber like hemp fiber, we need variance in the quality because it depends a little bit on the weather and the harvesting moment and the situation.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
It’s both a very learning process, but I think it succeeded a lot because today we’re supplying fiber for door panels for the Mercedes F, C, and A type.

Matt Baum:
Oh, wow.

Mark Reinders:
For the BMW, 3 and 5 series. For the Jaguar, for the Bentley and even for the Bugatti Veyron.

Matt Baum:
Oh, wow.

Mark Reinders:
The Bugatti Veyron, I’d like to tell you, because it’s not making me very rich because while I’m telling you this the factory produced enough for them for a whole year to use.

Matt Baum:
Wow.

Mark Reinders:
But the [inaudible 00:29:22] is because they are using it. They’re not using hemp fiber in the door panel to make this 1,000 horsepower car look very green at the end of the day because look it’s hemp fiber in the door panel, not at all. They use it because it gives weight reduction over carbon fiber. Actually, they are using it because of a better mechanically performance and that’s what I like. I want to sell our products because it’s better, not necessarily because it’s more sustainability.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
That’s the sound effect.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
That’s the extra.

Matt Baum:
That’s a plus.

Mark Reinders:
People are buying things because it’s better for them. Better performance, better quality, better internal climate.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
If you can make something that replaced something not sustainable, but it’s better, then people will buy it.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely.

Mark Reinders:
You make the world sustainable because the people are buying it.

Matt Baum:
So do you see-

Mark Reinders:
That’s my vision.

Matt Baum:
Do you see a future where HempFlax has a Formula One car that is a body built out of hemp plastics and whatnot? It’s a little lighter than the other cars, but it’s faster.

Mark Reinders:
I’m looking more Formula E. I think it does … fit a bit better there, but yeah it’s possible. Yeah, why not? Because the carbon fiber … Well, speaking about CO2 emission in the production, carbon fiber is a CO2 bump.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, it’s a monster.

Mark Reinders:
It’s amazing the energy input on the CO2 emission. It’s a nice fiber, strong fiber. You can make a lot of great, nice lightweight materials with it, but the LCA is terrible.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, so you said there’s some variance between plastic fibers and carbon fibers and glass fibers. Are you figuring out ways to shrink that variance, to make it to bring these a little more-

Mark Reinders:
Yeah.

Matt Baum:
… in line?

Comparing hemp in Europe and U.S.

Mark Reinders:
I think if you look at our production line, again it starts in the field and I think with all respect there’s a lot of … It’s still missing in the US, because you’re still working with your first crops and I see sometimes postings and pictures and movies. Oh nice, we tried it before, doesn’t work. Good luck. It’s really petty, because there’s a lot of trial and error there and it’s amazing how much errors we made in our life. Some errors we made twice to be sure. That’s a whole learning process. Actually, if I look at the production line we’ve built in Romania, it’s already better already compared to production line here we have in the Netherlands.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
Just because we work with the production line ourselves and our engineers we have are the operators of the machine. The operators, the guys working with it and machinery every day, they experience the problems, they see improvement.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
We give them the freedom to implement the improvements and for that reason I think we got a better production line. And then, we are able to combination harvesting in the fields and processing that we are able to make a very standard type of fiber that can be used in the automotive. If we are not able to do that, we cannot supply to the automotive industry.

Matt Baum:
Exactly, yeah. Especially something like that automotive industry where you have safety standards and whatnot that have to be very rigid in case an SUV crashes into one of those Mercedes. I’m sure they brought you each one of those cars after they fitted these. They said, “Thank you so much, here you go,” and you’ve got one each, right?

Mark Reinders:
No. No, not at all.

Matt Baum:
I’m sorry to hear.

Mark Reinders:
Not going to fit in the budget. One maybe in the future.

Matt Baum:
You brought up a point. It kind of blows my mind how far behind the States is because of the Prohibition and how we thought about this. Even now, when we have people in Europe, such as HempFlax that are literally 20 years ahead of us in working with this, we still haven’t fully connected and looked to say, “Hey, how are you guys doing that? We could use a little help over here.” We’re getting it together, but what do you think the future is for HempFlax? Where do you go from here? You guys have already … You’re in almost every business I can think of, from agriculture to industrial, what’s next?

Mark Reinders:
And then what’s next? Of course, we’re looking at America with great interest-

Matt Baum:
Yes.

Mark Reinders:
… and for some quite time already. Since 2015, after we finished the Romanian factory, we looked at the US, but at that time the federal legislation was not there yet. Early ’18, doesn’t look like it was going to happen. In the end, December ’18, the Farm Bill was signed finally, but up until then we couldn’t do anything.

Matt Baum:
Sure.

Mark Reinders:
Because if it was not legal on federal level I could not open a bank account. I could not ship it to every state, insurance policies-

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
… all those things you need as a company. Because I cannot go to my energy company with a bag of money and I want to pay the bill of this month, you know?

Matt Baum:
Right. You’re effectively [crosstalk 00:34:25] a drug dealer at that point.

Mark Reinders:
Yeah. I can only operate in a fully legal environment, so we had to wait till the Farm Bill was signed and then the Farm Bill was signed and then everybody was jumping on it. Of course, in the whole CBD craziness we said, “Okay, well, let’s see what happens, because.” I was very worried because I learned of so many acres of hemp were being sown without people having a harvesting machine, without having a market, without having the whole supply chain. I think it’s just a waste of energy and capital there, also for the farmers growing a very nice hemp crop, but not being able to sell it or harvest it. I have one free advice really and it’s no offense, but if you don’t have a customer, you don’t have a factory and you don’t have the proper harvesting machinery, do not plant hemp.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, it’s insane.

Mark Reinders:
Hemp is an expensive crop. It will cost you money when you plant it. It will cost you money when you harvest it. It will cost you even a whole lot more money if you start processing it. It only returns your money, at the moment it’s in a truck heading your customer, including invoice and get your invoice paid.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Mark Reinders:
At that moment you get your invoice paid, it can easily be two, 2-1/2 years after the moment you planted the hemp.

Matt Baum:
God.

Mark Reinders:
That’s something you have to consider. If you don’t have a customer, do not. Last year, we got a phone call in October from a US guy. He said, “Hey, I have 800 acres of hemp.” I need to call my harvester. So when? Next year is a no? Next week. But, listen this double cut combine is weighing 25,000 kilograms.

Matt Baum:
Right. We can’t just like put it in-

Mark Reinders:
It’s not something I can send to you with DHL Overnight Express.

Matt Baum:
What about piece by piece though? What if we took it apart, packed it up?

Mark Reinders:
No, I gave the suggestion hire an ethanol flame, maybe that works.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, there you go.

Mark Reinders:
It will be a costly flame, but amazing. If you plant hemp you should have a harvesting at least with bought harvesting machine because 120 days after planting it’s harvesting time. If you have to import machinery from Europe or whatever you have to plant it on a farm. If you’re thinking about a ’20/’21 crop you have to plant it today already. Start planning your harvest.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. It’s crazy because we’re very pro hemp and we are pushing hemp education and we want to see it succeed and I love that farmers are getting interested in this, but we just experienced this massive hemp bubble last year that burst because we had so much planted and there was literally no one to make fiber out of it, no one to dry it, no one to process it. A lot of trucking companies wouldn’t even ship it, because they don’t know. It’s terrifying. It’s so terrifying. I feel like you guys are sitting across the pond sort of watching the rats eat each other right now to see who comes out the strongest, you know?

Mark Reinders:
Yeah.

Matt Baum:
I’m jealous.

Mark Reinders:
Those are interesting to see, but sometimes I was a bit worried because I’m a farmer son myself and I know also hearing Europe, let’s say, [inaudible 00:37:44] effect, we also have quite some insolvencies in Europe from hemp processes that didn’t make it. They didn’t have customers in place and farmers not in place. And then the problem is hemp gets a very negative call, because farmers think you plant it, you never get paid, people get bankrupt and then in the end if there comes people in the company that really is taking up the good job and wants to do it right, it’s not able to get farmers because farmers are getting suspicious because there are very negative experiences from colleagues.

Matt Baum:
Or they saw what happened to the guy next door and said, “No.”

Mark Reinders:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
“I’m not doing that, that’s crazy.”

Mark Reinders:
And that’s what worries me a little bit. In order that hemp in US get successful is really time that a company steps up and tries to do it right this time. Think before you plant, that’s my free advice I wanted to give.

Matt Baum:
It’s a [crosstalk 00:38:42] scary time right now.

Mark Reinders:
Have a look at Europe. We have once a year. This year was online, but the hemp conference of the European International Hemp Association. Technically, there is … The worldwide hemp industry is present there. There’s a lot to learn there, lot to know. Maybe next year it will be real life. Up to them. We do everything at the moment online. It saves me a lot of traveling by the way.

Matt Baum:
We look forward to working with you guys hopefully sometime in the future. I don’t know. I mean, things are still pretty [crosstalk 00:39:12] up in the air and kind of messy, but if you want to come over and show us how it’s done we could use a little guidance, honestly.

Mark Reinders:
Yeah. If they allow me to go over again.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, no doubt. [crosstalk 00:39:22] Yeah, you don’t want to come right now, it’s kind of a mess. Let us clean up this COVID business first.

Mark Reinders:
I will. I’m afraid we’ll stay like that for a while.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, unfortunately. Mark, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your time.

Mark Reinders:
No problem.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
I got out of bed early just to do this. I want to send a huge thanks to Bethany who set this interview up. I didn’t realize that Mark was in the Netherlands and it was a little earlier than I expected, but I feel like I still sounded pretty awake. I just want to touch on one of the most interesting things that Mark said in the end of the interview when he brought up that American farmers who are choosing to plant hemp need to make sure they have a customer first and it’s true. One of the major reasons that hemp producers had so many issues last year with their harvest was because there’s just not enough infrastructure in place to take all that hemp and turn it into everything that it needs to be, whether it’s CBD or fiber.

Matt Baum:
Just today, I got an email for someone that was posting a comment on one of our older podcast episodes about how they were a farmer and they needed to know where they could sell their hemp. That is the wrong way to do this. You have to have a plan in place. You just have to. While we encourage everyone to look at growing hemp and get into growing hemp, you still have to make sure that there is infrastructure there and you have the proper connections to get that hemp where it needs to go so you can make money. Because at the end of the day, you got to pay your bills. HempFlax is obviously in a country that is a lot more accepting and helpful when it comes to this kind of stuff and the US is moving in that direction and we’re going to get there. I really do believe that. In the meantime, be careful and just like Mark said, “If you don’t have someone to sell that hemp to, maybe you shouldn’t be growing it.”

Matt Baum:
That brings us to the end of another exciting episode of The Ministry of Hemp podcast. I want to thank everybody that has been listening and downloading and commenting and call with their hemp questions. You can call me at 402-819-6417 with any of your hemp-related questions or you can shoot them to me in an MP3 at matt@ministryofhemp.com. Nothing is off limits and we love to answer your questions on the show, just like we did in the episode before this one. Next week on the show, we’re going to be talking about a new technology that could revolutionize testing when it comes to hemp and testing is a hot button issue. Remember, you got to keep everything below 0.03% THC. When you have a plant that looks like marijuana and smells like marijuana, it can be very hard to convince certain members of law enforcement that it is in fact hemp and not marijuana.

Matt Baum:
If you need more Ministry of Hemp in your life in the meantime, head over to ministryofhemp.com where we have a fantastic story that is all about CBG. It’s an introduction to, and I’m going to say this totally wrong, but I’m going to try it, Cannabigerol. Actually, I think I nailed it, but Cannabigerol or CBG is very hot right now. This is a great article that will help you understand just exactly what this cannabinoid does and why so many companies are featuring it.

Matt Baum:
You can also follow us on all of our social media @ministryofhemp/ministryofhemp everywhere and if you want to take it a step further head to Patreon/ministryofhemp and become a Ministry of Hemp Insider. It is the best way to help us to get this message of hemp education out to other people and it helps us so very much. Any amount you give makes you a Ministry of Hemp Insider, gets you access to podcast extras, early access to articles and bonus articles too. I cannot say thank you enough to everybody that is already supporting us. Like I said, if you want to help get the word out there, head to Patreon/ministryofhemp.com. Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider. I cannot stress how much it helps us spread the good word of hemp. Speaking of which, at Ministry of Hemp, we believe an accessible world is a better world for everyone, so you can find a full written transcript of this episode in the show notes as well. Huge thanks again to Receptra for being our partners in this one. Check them out at receptranaturals.com and I’ll have a link to their site in the show notes as well that’ll tell you more about their new Serious Rest for nighttime, full spectrum hemp extract with Chamomile.

Matt Baum:
All right, that about does it, but I like to end the show the same way every time, but saying remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions, will you? This is Matt Baum with the Ministry of Hemp signing off.

The post Hemp In Europe With Mark Reinders of HempFlax appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

In this episode, our host Matt talks with Doug, an NPR correspondent and activist author, about his upcoming book, “American Hemp Farmer: Adventures & Misadventures in the Cannabis Trade.” Doug tells us about growing hemp in New Mexico and also explains why a good sense of humor is important when trying to save the world.

We got our hands on a digital pre-release copy of “American Hemp Farmer” and just fell in love with it. The book is due out April 23 but can be pre-ordered today. We hope you do!

If you’d like to learn more about regenerative agriculture, check out our interview with John Roulac from a previous podcast episode.

Send us your feedback

We want to hear from you too. Send us your questions and you might hear them answered on future shows like this one! Send us your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, email matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

Subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast

If you like what you hear be sure to subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podbay, Stitcher, Pocketcasts, Google Play or your favorite podcast app.

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If you believe hemp can change the world then help us spread the word! Become a Ministry of Hemp Insider when you donate any amount on our Patreon. You’ll be the first to hear about everything going on with our special newsletter plus, exclusive Patron content including blogs, Podcast extras and more.

Visit the Ministry of Hemp on Patreon for more information.

Growing Hemp with Doug Fine: Complete episode transcript

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum and this is the Ministry of Hemp podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com. America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education.

Matt Baum:
It’s the Ministry of Hemp podcast. My name is Matt and I’m your host. Today on the show I’m going to be talking to Doug Fine. He’s an author of the book, American Hemp Farmer, and I can’t wait for you guys to read this. But before any of that, I want to send a huge thanks to everybody that has checked out our Patreon page. You can find it at patreon.com/ministryofhemp. Of course, there’ll be a link to that in our show notes. And huge thank you to everybody that has decided to help support us in spreading hemp education and taking a stand for legal hemp in the United States. Seriously, thank you so much. It is so cool to have this kind of support.

Matt Baum:
Be sure to get over there and check out all the extras we have. We’ve got a newsletter that’ll keep you in touch with everything we’re doing in the Ministry of Hemp. I do podcast extras over there. We just threw up an article on Ministry of Hemp’s Time at South by Southwest. All kinds of cool stuff with several different levels. Please check it out and if you already have, again, thank you so much.

Matt Baum:
Doug Fine is a self-described solar powered goat herder, comedic investigative journalist, bestselling author, and pioneer voice in regenerative farming including cannabis and hemp. He has cultivated hemp for food and seed building in four U.S. states and teaches a Sterling College hemp class in Vermont. In addition, he’s an award winning culture and climate correspondent from five continents: NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among others. His books include American Hemp Farmer, Hemp Bound, Too High to Fail, Farewell, My Subaru, which was a Boston Globe bestseller, Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man and First Legal Harvest, a monograph that was printed on hemp paper.

Matt Baum:
Willie Nelson calls Doug’s work, “A blueprint for the America of the future.” The Washington Post says, “Fine is a storyteller in the mold of Douglas Adams.”

Matt Baum:
When I interviewed Doug for this show, I had read about half of his new book, American Hemp Farmer. And since I finished it. It is wonderful. Like I said, I can’t wait for you guys to read it.

Meet Doug Fine

Matt Baum:
Here’s my conversation with author, solar powered goat herder, and comedic investigative journalist, Doug Fine.

Matt Baum:
So Doug, you’ve got a new book coming out and this is your second book on hemp.

Doug Fine:
Yes. Well, it depends on how you count it. I’ll tell you this. It was, first, I wrote a book on psychoactive cannabis, regenerative psychoactive cannabis called Too High to Fail. And then wrote Hemp Bound. And then in between Hemp Bound and this new one, American Hemp Farmer, I put out a hemp printed monograph called First Legal Harvest, collaborated with the good folks at Colorado Hemp Company on that one. So you could argue this is my fourth.

Matt Baum:
Okay, fair enough. No, I’ll count it. That’s awesome by the way. So tell me how this got started, this journey. You’ve been a reporter for a long time and you’ve been an author sort of writing these long form reports on what you’re doing. How did you get started in this?

Doug Fine:
I’m an extreme left brain person. So I’m a real sort of verbal communicator. That’s where my skill set is. And it’s also, I do enjoy it, especially, when there’s humor involved in any kind of presentation. Whether it’s written or performance or anything, I love doing it. I feel very lucky that that’s who I am and what I’ve always been. The journey, though, to be covering cannabis hemp plant, I could talk to you about the origins and there are some cool origins to it. But what’s been sticking, Matt, with my mind lately is where we are now. And what I’ve learned about my own relationship with plants and all of our relationships with plants, there are people, of course, farmers, people who were born into farming, who understand their relationship with plants and how it’s as complicated and as interesting, at least, as relationships with animals and all that kind of thing.

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure.

Doug Fine:
But totemically, I’ve always been more of an animal guy, really good with animals. It’s through journalism that I’ve learned about the cannabis plant and expanded my sort of, I guess, love and appreciation for plant’s intelligence.

Matt Baum:
Okay. So you were never a farmer. You never came from a farm background, right?

Doug Fine:
I came from the opposite. I came from… The way I kind of sum it up is the New York suburbs when Madonna was like a virgin.

Matt Baum:
Okay. That’s good. That’s really good. And you decided, “Oh, I’ve had all these outdoor adventures. I fell in love with goat herding. Why not grow hemp.” And just threw yourself into it.

Doug Fine:
Yeah. I lived in Alaska for a number of years and I subsistence fish there. I really learned about being a member of the animal kingdom in an ecosystem and loved it and wrote a book called Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man. And then wanting to see about being self-sufficient, energy wise, I moved to New Mexico where you can kind of point the solar panel down towards the ground, still get enough power for your day. And lived and continue to live that lifestyle. Wrote a book about that called Farewell My Subaru. And then was interested in the end of cannabis prohibition and the revival of hemp. But what was the catalyst to make it my next sort of mission was my next door neighbor in New Mexico. When I say that, I mean, very far away out at shouting distance when we were both in our home.

Doug Fine:
He’s a retired guy from Kodak. Minding his own business and self-medicating with cannabis for PTSD for military service. Not only gets raided but for a few plants and to which for amount that today is totally legal.

Matt Baum:
Right. Thank God they took him out though. We can’t have anything like that going on. How dangerous. I mean, a guy with a few plants taking care of himself. Good Lord.

Doug Fine:
Oh man. And putting all of us in danger actually. It was crazy. I don’t know if you’ve been around full-bore raids, but it was like living in apocalypse now. There was planes, helicopters, uniforms of every description. I had to wade through some machine guns to get past his ranch to my ranch and it was not okay.

Matt Baum:
If you’re going to put a raid on you may as well put on a show too, right? I mean, come on. Good Lord. So from there-

Doug Fine:
That’s what made me decide I was going to write about the end of the drug war. So I’ve been kind of off and on on that topic for the last 10 or so years. That’s what I’m doing. I’m putting my comedic investigated energy into cannabis. This time where I’m at, it’s about hemp industry has started. It’s for real.

Growing hemp in America

Doug Fine:
I’ve been part of it because I just don’t… I’m sick of pundits who talk about stuff and don’t actually do it themselves. So I’m going to try myself. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I’m five years into my own hemp planting, two or three years to my own product. And this new book is really about suggesting what mode…No, I’m sorry, just my own modes, but all the people I’ve met for being a successful entrepreneur as a farmer entrepreneur. In other words, regeneratively producing hemp in such a way that you’re doing good for your community, your family, your bottom line, but also for humanity’s climate change mitigation efforts.

Matt Baum:
Okay. One of the things that I loved from whatever… And I haven’t read the whole book, I read about half of it and I love the way you write. I love the humor you inject in it because otherwise this could be really dry and just come off as, “Oh great. Another hippie has decided he’s going to tell me a good way to do this stuff.” But I love that you made the choice not only am I going to discuss, basically, a 20 acre farm, I’m going to try to make a living on it too. What was that decision like? How did you… I mean, I would guess you’re a single, but you write about your wife and kids and stuff. How do you turn to the family and say, “Okay, not only am I going to write this book, I am going to write a book about how we try to live on this.” How did that decision play out in the family?

Doug Fine:
Definitely having a supportive family is vital and central and entire. If you’re going to be any kind of farmer or just any kind of entrepreneur, let alone both, everybody has to be on board. So for that, I’m extremely thankful. Very, very thankful.

Doug Fine:
In truth though, while I am on what I like to think of as a five year game plan for the product that I put out, I am lucky compared to many of the other people who are covered in the book in that my income is not dependent upon immediately selling large numbers of that product.

Matt Baum:
Right. It’s not that you didn’t start from zero and go, “Okay. Yeah, this is it. I’m not taking any money from book sales or anything.” No. I mean, I get that, which is good. I mean, you’ve got to live. I understand that.

Doug Fine:
But I am trying to be successful. I’ve got some great new partners for the product that I do… So I am trying to walk the walk. I appreciate the question, but in truth when we’re… So we’re dealing with some real code red issues in hemp. But I bet you’ve talked about here on Ministry of Hemp before in terms of the necessity of getting the THC level, at least, up to one to start. And changes that have to happen in the recent to the late last year’s draft regulations, USDA regulations.

Doug Fine:
So we have some code red stuff going on. For people who are depending on who have put all their nest egg and their livelihood and an investment into their hemp enterprise, these decisions getting fixed for farmer… This is not a joke for them. It’s not a joke for me either, but it’s just not as mission critical. I guess I can take a more relaxed approach to it than some people can.

Matt Baum:
But it is terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying. If you’re a farmer, you decide you’re going to grow this stuff and you’re going to do the research like you did. You had partners in Oregon, right, that you were working with to get your hemp plants?

Doug Fine:
Oregon and Vermont, both.

Growing hemp and making mistakess

Matt Baum:
Okay. What was that like when you decided, “All right, I know I need to go find a plant that is below 0.03% THC.” So you don’t get rated like your old neighbor. Or just told to destroy your field. I mean, are you initially calling your shot, taking your best guess at who to work with and planting in and just hoping for the best? Was there terror there?

Doug Fine:
I don’t think there was terror, but that is a really good question. Because, I think, and the book points this out, really, I think, the hardest part for me, what I’ve found and now three, four, five years at this is choosing the right partners. Many of us, probably most of us, learn the hard way. There’s a section in the book what says, “Plan for plan B.” You are not going to make all your right decisions right at the beginning.

Doug Fine:
So the partners, the folks that I work with now, my colleagues in Oregon and my colleagues in Vermont, are both people that are in it for the long-term like I am that have similar dispositions. Because we all kind of… If you ask someone like, “Okay, if you were going to pair up entrepreneurially with someone, what would you want in a farmer type enterprise?” You say, “Well, similar values on organics, farming skills, honesty.” Those are all important skills but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a good business match. So I would urge people to really, really look carefully before they leap in with someone on the entrepreneurial side.

Matt Baum:
Did they think you were insane when you came to them and you were like, “Look, I’m not a farmer. I’m a journalist. I have this idea for a book and I want to do this.” Did they think you were crazy or were they like, “Great, let’s do it.”

Doug Fine:
Well, the partners that I have now are more experienced than I. My partner in Oregon, has written about a lot in the book, Edgar Winters, he started cultivating up in 1957. He might be the longest cultivating American hemp farmer at this point. He’s got a really fantastic backstory and an organic mindset. He’s been an absolutely a great mentor. He didn’t think I was crazy at all.

Doug Fine:
One of the sentiments that we all share, all the people that I really work with, I mean, there’s so many people that I have mutually support. We support one another and want each other to succeed. But in terms of people that I’m really partnered with, we share something, which is all along, we’ve not been interested in just following the CBD gold rush that we love cannabinoids. Who wouldn’t love cannabinoids? They are great.

Doug Fine:
It’s really about food and next generation industrial components. Hemp is a superfood from the seed as we’ve known. This stuff is less of an immediate gold rush and more of a long-term play and that’s something that we all had in common going in.

From raising goats to growing hemp

Matt Baum:
Let me ask you. When we first started talking, I don’t think I haven’t recorded it, you mentioned about how you started with animals and the connection that you felt to animals. And from there you felt this connection to this plant. Tell me about that a little bit. How did that develop? How did it go from your goats to hemp?

Doug Fine:
I think we all have sort of totemic energy, synchronicities with that sound too woo.

Matt Baum:
No, I love it. I love it. I am smiling. When you started there I was like, “Here we go.”

Doug Fine:
And to admit it, we could say this, I could say, “I think I’m decent at goat ranching.” I think I’ve taken to it that the goats like me. They know I love them. They know I’m not rushing. I’m not resenting my whatever it is, 20 minutes, twice a day spent milking and the other care you have to give. I enjoy it. I enjoy it the way you talked about it earlier before we went on the air for about your hobbies.

Matt Baum:
Yeah.

Doug Fine:
But with plants, it wasn’t that I didn’t respect plants. It’s just that my connections tended to be more with animals and it’s through now many years of journalism about the hemp plant and then finally leaping in to planting it that I’ve come to recognize and feel comfortable speaking about plant intelligence. It continues. I was just talking to my Vermont partners the other day. The reality of the situation right now is that some of our seed in Vermont, which is organically certified, something I’m really proud of because when you have a plant that five years ago was some kind of ridiculous felony. And now you’ve got federally certified unifiers coming and it’s a good feeling saying USDA organic on your crop.

Doug Fine:
Well, my colleagues, great colleagues, in Vermont that I work with also written about in the book, some of our harvest from last year we think we want to now use for experimenting with food product as opposed to selling it for its genetics because it’s good genetics. And or using it immediately in our other products. But just use a portion of it to see about it as a straight up food product. Just do our own research on that. And that is 100% the plant telling us what it wants to do. Just the logistics of where our seeds are, where our seed cleaners are, what our winters were shaping up before next year, the plant was done just like your goats or your fish will tell you what they want. The plant was telling us what we want, and I’ve started to really accept plant intelligence.

Doug Fine:
Some people out there who can say, “Oh, that’s a heartwarming story.” Or “Oh, I’m going have my eyes open for plants to talk.” But most people who are listening to this who are already hemp farmers are going, “Duh.” Because they probably already had recognized that their totemic connection was to various plants. For me, it’s new and it’s beautiful to learn something when you’re several decades in the life, you know?

Matt Baum:
Sure, sure.

Support the Ministry of Hemp on Patreon

Matt Baum:
We’ll be right back to my interview with Doug. But first, a short word from Ministry of Hemp, Editor-in-Chief, Kit O’Connell about our Patreon page. I know. I can’t stop talking about it.

Kit O’Connell:
Hi, this is Kit O’Connell. I’m the editor-in-chief at Ministry of Hemp. I hope you’re enjoying the Ministry of Hemp podcast and the articles we’ve been publishing recently. But today I want to talk to you about the newest way that you can support what we do.

Kit O’Connell:
So we’re launching a Patreon at patreon.com/ministryofhemp. And this Patreon will help our readers and fans contribute to what we do. With your help, we’ll be able to make our podcast and produce even more great articles about science and information about hemp and CBD.

Kit O’Connell:
We’ll publish more recipes and more guides. We’ll be able to work with more journalists, chefs, and authors of all kinds. Not only that, but by joining our Patreon, you’ll become a hemp insider. We’re launching a special newsletter just for our patrons. Each month we’ll work with experts and advocates and other industry professionals to give you an inside look at hemp and offer you ways to help the return of our favorite plant nationwide.

Kit O’Connell:
To get access to this new newsletter, you can donate any amount on our Patreon, even as low as $3 a month. For a few dollars more, we’ll send you some Ministry of Hemp stickers and even samples of our favorite CBD products. If you joined before February 15th at $25 or more, we’ll give you a Ministry of Hemp t-shirt as well.

Kit O’Connell:
So if you love hemp and the work that we’re doing at the Ministry of Hemp, I hope you’ll support us. You can join at patreon.com/ministryofhemp. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/ministry ofhemp, which is all one word. Thanks.

Doug Fine on hemp seed oil and hemp foods

Matt Baum:
What kind of food products are you guys thinking about doing with yours?

Doug Fine:
So the product that I already doing… Please don’t folks, don’t take this as a commercial. Shop locally, 12 batch and… The product that I already do is called Hemp and Hemp. It already has hemp seed oil. It’s department stable product with hemp flower and hemp seed oil. That’s it. That’s the only ingredient. That’s why it’s called, Hemp and Hemp. It’s potentially be a superfood, but because I’m really walking very carefully to becoming officially a food product with all FDA now leaping in hemp. Thus far, I’ve always marketed it as a massage oil and a bath oil because it’s got an entourage effect of cannabinoids that I think almost has a chemical relationship with the lipids from its own plant. The seed from its own flower.

Doug Fine:
It relaxes me. I’ve been told that this is the one you have to be careful about claims. It’s about the entourage effect of the cannabinoids, right? I should say very low levels, all of them, not what today people we consider maximum milligram dose of any of the cannabinoids. And yet I like it. It works. I enjoy the product. So that product is already dialed into be officially a food product. That’s going to be a superfood that’s also a cannabinoid.

Doug Fine:
But what we’re talking about doing now is taste profilings on pressing the seed for just straight up seed oil. Just straight up as a nutritive seed. Things like hemp hearts. We were even talking about doing chocolate. Cacao covered whole seeds and then the one of the element that’s really exciting on the horizon is that hemp protein powder. That’s the byproduct when you press the seed oil. It’s a great human food, but it’s going to be a great animal feed. And there’s a lot of people, as I’m sure you know, you’ve probably had them on your Ministry of Hemp. There are a lot of people working to make sure that animal feed is… That hemp is approved as an animal feed. We’re getting that.

Matt Baum:
I know they’re definitely pushing for it right now and a lot of people want that. Had your goats eat hemp? Or you feed them hemp?

Doug Fine:
They love it. They love it. Yes, absolutely.

A sustainable future for hemp in all forms

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. So tell me when you were getting started. I liked how, in the book, you wrote about how Michael Pollan, who’s an author that I adore, talked about how this plant has been around for millennia. We’ve been growing this and it has been giving us things. Whether it’s, like you said, cannabinoids or sandals or the rope or whatever. What was it that drew you to that idea of it? Because you went… A lot of people get to the CBD bubble, like you said, and go for the gold there and just stop. But you’re talking about growing hemp for food for industrial. That’s really the hard part. What’s the attraction there? Is it just because that’s what the plant is telling you that it wants?

Doug Fine:
Matt, I feel righteous when I feel like my career is part of an effort to save humanity and give a good life to my kids. So that’s a big part of it is feeling good about going to work each day. When we have an industrial pipeline where the stuff, our stuff, all of our stuff are rocket door panels. Our car door panels, is made from biomaterials, not just hemp fiber, but all kinds of renewable biomass or regenerative biomass. And we’re not burning as much dinosaur juice. That’s a good sign.

Doug Fine:
And then superfood. I mean, it really, it truly is a superfood and has long been recognized as… Because humans have bred it for it to be a superfood with great proteins, and amino acids, and anti-inflammatory properties.

Doug Fine:
I remember when I was researching my earlier book about Hemp Bound, that I was ostensibly on an interview about hempcrete. One of the graduate students at the Manitoba College where I was looking at a hempcrete project, said that where he grew up in Iran, that they didn’t have Doritos and pretzels for soccer practice snacks that everybody just went to this vendor on the street who roasted hemp seeds and the word [shadi naan 00:00:22:41] in Persian, hemp seed.

Matt Baum:
That is so cool. I didn’t even know that was going on. That’s like…

Doug Fine:
Yeah, I mean it’s prohibition that’s been the aberration. It’s amazing how much can be remembered and forgotten in 77 years.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely. One of the things that I think is amazing about hemp as a crop in the United States right now is the fact that prohibition was bad and it set us way back. But it also allowed us to have a very true version of this plant that hasn’t been modified a whole lot. We’re returning to it almost. Can I ask you, what was your first harvest like? I mean, was it just an instant success? I mean, did you plant this and it just, you follow the instructions and it worked?

Doug Fine:
The first harvest was really beautiful. But you hit on something there really important in that question about that there can be upsides to this three generation enforced break with this plant. From being one of humanity’s favorite plants to be in one of its most vilified plants and back is a really interesting thing. Because you could draw a lot of conclusions about exactly what hemp cannabis prohibition parallel. But things like all the horrors of the 20th century that we could list, we weren’t feeding the endocannabinoid system. But also that we live in a society where, although, there is now a Renaissance of healthy living, and regenerative living, and regenerative farming, and eating and everything, the majority of the people on the earth are not eating healthy diets. So that hemp can come back and provide this healthy, tasty solution is a great thing.

Doug Fine:
But also on the business end is what I find really interesting is that as someone who is developing genetics with hemp, right? Needless to say, I’d come across folks who are interested in working on the genetic model of what you might call the 20th century way of distributing seeds, which is, to put it bluntly, farmers have to buy it from you every year if you’re a seed provider. And you don’t own your food. You don’t own your genetics.

Matt Baum:
You’re growing somebody else’s seeds basically.

Doug Fine:
Yeah. And that’s not how I want to farm. So I and others are looking at a different model. It seems so weird to folks who are like… They think that what’s been going on for the last 75 years in the way farmers have been treated is normal. And they’re trying to recreate it now. I was thinking when Charles Ingalls and the Ingalls family was going out a little house on the Prairie and with their wheat seed and starting their wheat crop, they were not serves to company that they brought their wheat from. And for-

Matt Baum:
No, they were just farmers, basically.

Doug Fine:
Yeah. So the business model that we’re able to recreate and when someone says, “Hey, that’s never how agriculture has been done. It’s tough.” You banned our plant for so many years, we’re doing it our way now. And if you want to try and rip off farmers or… Let me be fair. Let me be fair. There was an argument to be made, a legitimate argument to be made that as long as supply is consistent, the people that are selling, let’s say, seeds that a farmer might want to grow for a food product on large acreage, they probably are offering it at much, much lower prices than someone like me and others who would be offering right of replication and the ability of own genetics.

Matt Baum:
I mean, Nebraska corn is a perfect example.

Doug Fine:
Yeah. You’re right.

Matt Baum:
It’s sad. But that’s why there’s so much of it too.

Doug Fine:
Exactly.

Matt Baum:
So what-

Doug Fine:
Fair enough, right? Different business model, but just to answer your question about the first harvest, I got to tell you. My son was with me on the first harvest that I was really fully part of. I’d been covering hemp for years and cannabis and hemp both for years. But the first crop that was really, I was part of. My son spent his sixth birthday harvesting and loved it. It’s a great memory for everyone and I have a great picture of a bundle of his hemp covering his whole body. It did go well. We were partnered with a great, terrific farmer that first year and I learned a lot from him. I’m very grateful to the first partners that I had when I first started out. So I would say that it was a combination of good fortune, good weather, good genetics, good partners.

Doug Fine:
But yeah, the first crop was… It was a high benchmark that I still judge every year’s crop bite. How does it look compared to 2016 in Vermont.

Making money from growing hemp

Matt Baum:
Sure. So let’s say you’re not an author, you don’t have any other money coming in. Can you live on this? Could this be the one thing that you do?

Doug Fine:
No, not yet. I’m excited about a new partnership that I have. So I have these great friends that I’ve known for seven years. These great women, Kim and Dana, who run this health center in Tucson, that it’s just trusted in the community of helping people, especially, with cannabis. And they’re not a dispensary, but they do have put sales of various things including hemp products. So there are people that I trust. There are people who trust me and there are people who have an existing body of customers in a major city who trust them. And they are talking numbers that if we decided to switch… We’re still deciding how much acreage to plan for this year, 2020. If we really go for it, let’s say, 2020 even just isn’t yet another kind of… I don’t want to say a practice year, but a growth year and it’s 2021 before there would be a significant amount of income for my family.

Doug Fine:
Again, you’re asking such good questions. I’m glad you asked that because it’s easy to advise people to have a five year plan and say, “Oh, you better be ready.” Best laid plans. You’re not going to make money for the first couple of years. Especially, if you’re doing it right. Especially if you have soil to clean up.

Matt Baum:
Right.

Doug Fine:
But if you’re a farmer that’s struggling and has a mortgage, you need to make it work. So it’s a tough decision. But you got to have that long-term game plan.

Matt Baum:
It’s a matter of what do you have to lose, basically, in that case.

Doug Fine:
Yeah. Right.

Matt Baum:
This wasn’t a gotcha question. Like, “Oh well, he’s an author. Of course, he can stop and do this. He’s got that fat NPR money. I’m sure.”

What’s next for Doug Fine?

Matt Baum:
So what’s the next book about?

Doug Fine:
Good question. Well, so American Hemp Farmers, what we’ve been talking about now, comes out year 2020. The world’s kind of open on the next one. I have a collection of comedic essays that are related to hemp that I’ve been working on. I’m also developing a TV show of the same name, American Hemp Farmer that is related to that.

Matt Baum:
Oh, awesome.

Doug Fine:
It’s not picked up yet, but I’m optimistic about it. [crosstalk 00:29:23]

Matt Baum:
That’s very cool.

Doug Fine:
Eyes and ears open.

Matt Baum:
Okay. If you’re going forward, do you continue? Is hemp a part of your life now? Are you a hemp farmer now? This is the life?

Doug Fine:
I’m about to apply for my New Mexico permit. So my commercial work is not at home in New Mexico. New Mexico permits are pretty expensive. They start hover around 700, 800 bucks. So it’s just for personal use. We’re using our fiber from last year’s harvest to do a hempcrete patch on our porch. There’s like a little door jamb home.

Matt Baum:
You make your own hempcrete?

Doug Fine:
Yeah. Isn’t that cool?

Matt Baum:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Doug Fine:
But I mean, very micro amounts, man. Not a huge amount.

Matt Baum:
Oh, sure. Yeah.

Doug Fine:
But what I’m getting at is, yes, I’m going from my own family’s food and fiber needs. One of these years we’ll grow enough at home. Because my sweetheart makes a lot of them. Our family’s clothes in general and including hemp clothes, but not yet from hemp that we’ve grown. So that would be cool.

Matt Baum:
Yeah. I mean, the next step, that’s one of the things I’m really excited for is hemp material and hemp processing of fabrics and whatnot. It seems like we are so far behind right now. There’s no reason. There’s no reason whatsoever.

Matt Baum:
Doug, I love the book. I don’t want to keep you any longer. You’ve got kids and goats and whatnot. Is there anything that you want to touch on that I didn’t touch on that we need to mention? I’m going to edit this too, so this part will go out. We’re just going to sound super slick. Don’t worry about that. But is there anything-

Doug Fine:
You did a fantastic job of covering the basics. I guess, I would say to leave folks with, first off, thank you so much for your support of American Hemp Farmer. And thanks for reading it because-

Matt Baum:
Oh, love it.

Doug Fine:
Thank you. The goal is to help farmers as you know, Matt, for reading it. That’s really why I wrote the book. And folks who want to follow me at Organic Cowboy on Twitter and Instagram. And my website’s dougfine.com where folks can sign up for my periodic dispatches from the Funky Butte Ranch. Everything about regenerative living and hemp and beyond. Thanks for keeping an eye out for future projects.

Support from the hemp community

Matt Baum:
Hey, last question, and I just thought of it. Did you feel any pushback from other people that are farmers and whatnot that thought this guy’s faking it? This guy’s getting in it just because as a fashion statement or something. Was there anybody that pushed back against you?

Doug Fine:
I felt almost complete support since getting into hemp. I think one of the reasons was, I mean, the first year that I planted, myself was 2016. And there were not, I forgot, like 700 something permanent farmers that year.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, maybe.

Doug Fine:
Being back that early, again, I do not consider… I consider myself learning every single time I put a seed in the ground and I do not consider myself an expert. But at least I’ve been added enough to wear a badge of legitimate… Somewhat of a badge of legitimacy. And that’s something I’m going to always try to do is to walk the walk. Because nobody’s perfect and it’s not just about growing hemp organically, regeneratively and all that. My product, I spend 50 cents per label on compostable label with non-toxic stickum. It’s really expensive to be righteous.

Matt Baum:
Yeah, it’s hard. It’s very hard.

Doug Fine:
You have to be a role model here because you don’t want people calling you out and going, “Why is there plastic in your packaging.” And stuff like that. We’re trying to save humanity here.

Matt Baum:
You’ve got to be really careful every step of the way. And it’s not just gatekeeping and whatnot. I mean, if we’re going to do this, it’s important to do it the right way. But yeah, it’s not easy.

Matt Baum:
Doug, you’re doing it the right way. I love the book. I’m excited for other people to read it. I hope you get this TV show because you’re a riot and this would be fantastic. We need more of this. We need more people that not only can tell the story and spread the word, but they can do it with a little bit of humor and make it relatable and that’s what I really liked about your book. That is not to say that all the other scientists and farmers I’ve interviewed were super boring. You were just great. Okay? That’s all I’m saying.

Doug Fine:
Well, bless you for that and thank you to you and the Ministry of Hemp. It’s a great resource and I’m sure you got a ton of followers, but I hope everybody’s paying attention and I’m watching.

Matt Baum:
Hey, we’ll keep spreading the word if you do man. Thank you so much for what you’ve done.

Doug Fine:
You’re welcome. Thank you brother.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
You can follow the further adventures of Doug over at dougfine.com. You can find him anywhere on social media with his handle at Organic Cowboy. I’ll have information in the show notes about how to preorder American Hemp Farmer. It would be really cool to help Doug get on the bestseller list, so if you get a chance, get over there and preorder American Hemp Farmer. I know I’ve gushed about it the whole episode, but I loved this book.

Matt Baum:
And that about brings us to the end of another episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. My name is Matt. I have been your host and I want to thank everybody that is supporting us with your downloads, our Patreon or just asking questions. You can call me at 402-819-6417 and ask your hemp related question. We will play it later on one of our Hemp Q and A shows where Kit, the editor-in-chief of ministryofhemp.com and myself, play your questions on the air and answer them. So please shoot us your questions. You’ll be able to find that phone number in the show notes along with information about how to preorder Doug Fine’s book and all kinds of other cool stuff including the full written transcript for this episode. Because at Ministry of Hemp, we believe a more accessible world is a better world for everybody.

Matt Baum:
Be sure to get over to ministryofhemp.com and check out all the latest stuff that we’re throwing up there, article wise, and let us know what you think about everything we’re doing at all of our social media. You can find us under the handle at Ministry of Hemp or /ministryofhemp.

Matt Baum:
Until next time, this is Matt reminding you to take care of yourself, take care of others, and make good decisions, will ya? This is the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Signing off.

The post Growing Hemp With Doug Fine, Solar-Powered Goat Herder & American Farmer appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

Fuel is everything. America would not be the hyper-efficient economy it is today without something to power our cars, computers, and our Roomba vacuum cleaners. We would be nothing but Neolithic farmers without our electricity and gasoline.

But, anything that is truly valuable always comes at a price. Traditional fuel sources hurt the environment, and they’re running out. Air pollution from processing fossil fuels harms the troposphere, and indirectly depletes ozone from our atmosphere. The price for hyper efficiency is evident, which is why alternative fuel sources are becoming so important. Today we focus on a fuel source that hits close to home. That alternative is hemp biofuel.

The cannabis plant is the gift that keeps on givin’. This magic plant gives us CBD oil, THC, hemp fibers and even fuel! Researchers have made hemp into two types of biofuel: biodiesel and ethanol.

Hemp biodiesel

Biodiesel is produced by the pressing of hemp seeds to extract their oils & fats.

After the extraction, the product is then put through more steps to make it into a usable hemp biofuel for your car. If you’re curious to learn about the specifics of biodiesel production, the process is thoroughly explained by hemp.com.

The argument for hemp-derived biodiesel comes down to convenience. If processed correctly, biodiesel can be put into any diesel-powered automobiles. It can be stored and transported like diesel, so there isn’t a need to create a new system for transportation. It even replaces the smell of traditional diesel with the smell of hemp.

Using hemp to make ethanol

Ethanol is traditionally made from wheat-based crops such as corn and barley. It’s traditionally used as an additive to gasoline, which gave way to our “flex-fuel” vehicles of today.

Hemp can be made into ethanol by various forms of fermentation. Using hemp as the main source of ethanol, instead of food crops like wheat & corn has clear advantages. Not using food crops as a fuel source allows more efficiency in food production, and hemp can be grown in lower quality conditions unlike corn or wheat. Hemp-derived ethanol also shares the advantages of transportation and usability as biodiesel.

Hemp biofuel: A more sustainable alternative?

Fuel alternatives like this can seem like a no-brainer to replace our traditional fossil-fuel sources, but there are drawbacks to these alternative techniques.

To set up a large-scale industrial hemp farm, you will experience the same ethical dilemmas that the farming industry faces. Deforestation and pesticide use will increase, and we’ll inevitably replace some of our food-crop land with more hemp-crop land. Farmers can grow hemp biofuel on land that is not fit for other crops. This “marginal land” is essentially land that isn’t tilled and cleared out for farming.

Despite the versatility, hemp produces a much bigger harvest in ideal farming settings. Additionally, marginal land is actually home to important plants, trees, and living creatures that are vital to the ecosystem. Read “Is Hemp The Best Biofuel?” from sensiseeds.com for a more in-depth look into the argument for hemp biofuel.

Clearly, hemp biofuel alone won’t solve our environmental crisis, but we believe it could be part of a transition to a cleaner way of living.

The auto industry already uses hemp

While hemp biofuel may not be a popular alternative just yet, the automotive industry already uses hemp.

Automakers weave hemp plastic into a bendable material similar to fiberglass. Almost all European car makers use hemp fibers as interior door panels and trim pieces. And companies like FlexForm technologies operate as a dedicated producer of hemp-fiberglass that they sell to automotive companies to be made into car doors and exterior panels.

Cars that feature hemp-based materials include the BMW i8 supercar and the Lotus Evora. The advantages that come with hemp-made materials is that they are lighter, bio-degradable, and comes from a much easier renewable resource. Hemp grows in roughly 3 months while metals take thousands of years to form.

The future of hemp fuel

Now that hemp is legal in the U.S., we’re witnessing the beginning of  hemp revolution. We hope that means more hemp material available for experimental uses like fuel, in the not too distant future.

While hemp biofuel can’t solve the entire energy crisis (we believe the answer to that problem will require multiple solutions), it can provide us with a great renewable fuel source in addition to its already useful applications.

While we spent our time here discussing hemp biofuel, let’s not forget the other ways people have been using hemp. There’s hemp beer, hemp paper, and, this reporter’s personal favorite, hemp food! The future is indeed green.

Article updated October 2019.

The post Hemp Biofuel Could Ease Our Dependence On Fossil Fuels appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

Our host Matt talks with John Roulac, founder of ReBotanicals and an outspoken proponent of regenerative agriculture. They talk about everything from what it means to be a responsible farmer, the Center for Food Safety’s Hemp-CBD Report Card, to how gross rotten coconuts can be. John isn’t just an environmentalist and founder of one of Ministry of Hemp’s Top Brands, he’s also working on a film called “Kiss the Ground” narrated by Woody Harelson produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.

We want to hear from you too. Send us your questions and you might hear them answered on future shows like this one! Send us your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, email matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you really want to help us out, we’d love for you to rate or review the show.

Thanks again for listening! Contact sales@ministryofhemp.com if you’re interested in sponsoring our podcast or other content on our website.

More resources: Hemp, agriculture and sustainability

Here are some articles we’ve published about regenerative agriculture and hemp:

• How Hemp Can Heal the Soil
• Farming the Fields of Green: Hemp Growing in America

Regenerative Agriculture, Hemp and Saving the World: Complete episode transcript

Below you’ll find a full written transcript of this episode:

Matt Baum: 00:00 Last week was a pretty huge week for climate science. I’m sure you heard that there was a climate strike, I’m sure you saw Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old climate activist that spoke in front of the UN last week. She gave a very fire and brimstone speech that some genius on YouTube set to death metal, and it’s wonderful.

Speaker 2: 00:27 [inaudible 00:00:27] How dare you?

Matt Baum: 00:35 She said all her speeches will have death metal in the background from now on, and as a metalhead I can get behind that, but the important part was we were actually talking about climate science, in a time where there’s been a lot of attacking science, and a lot of attacking the facts of climate change. It’s so cool to see the youth of the world coming together and organizing these climate strikes.

Matt Baum: 01:00 So today on the show we’re going to talk about what some hemp farmers are doing to do their part, to grow hemp responsibly. It’s part of a practice called regenerative agriculture. My name is Matt Baum and this is the Ministry of Hemp podcast.

Meet John Roulac

Matt Baum: 01:22 Today on the show I’m having a conversation with ne of the founders of one of Ministry of Hemp’s top brands, RE Botanicals. His name is John Roulac, and not only is he a huge proponent of regenerative agriculture and making an incredible CBD product, but he is also a very outspoken, punk rock environmentalist that is not afraid to call people out when they’re doing it wrong. I don’t know if I’ve talked to anyone with the depth of knowledge that John has about hemp, from seed to plant, to processing and finally to market.

Matt Baum: 01:59 When John is not working at RE Botanicals, or speaking about regenerative agriculture, he is currently working on a movie with producer Leonardo DiCaprio, Woody Harrelson narrates, the film is called, Kiss The Ground, and it is all about how regenerative agriculture is probably going to save the world. This is my conversation with John Roulac.

Matt Baum: 02:28 So you’ve been very vocal and active in the world of regenerative agriculture and hemp for a long time now, what is your origin story, which was first? Was it regenerative agriculture or was it hemp?

John Roulac: 02:42 The dumped nuclear waste by an identified truck driver when I was 21 years old, at my [inaudible 00:02:48] Pasadena. So that’s when I set off to my journey of, “What is going on?”

Matt Baum: 02:55 So that’s not a joke? That sounds like a superhero origin to me.

John Roulac: 03:00 Yeah.

Matt Baum: 03:00 Wow.

John Roulac: 03:02 I’m on the hero’s journey, the Joseph Campbell … When I first found out that they just dumped it by my house and an identified truck driver, they didn’t do anything about it, I was like, “Take me to whoever is destroying the earth, and I want to give my piece of mind.”

Matt Baum: 03:19 Yeah.

John Roulac: 03:20 And what I discovered after about a year of just reading about back in the late 70s, the hole in the ozone layer, dying whales and pollution, and pesticides et cetera, was it was about how we were living. Living on planet earth and what our lifestyle choices were and how corporations acted, but at the end of the day, it’s the decisions people made in, what kind of food, what kind of car they drove, do they recycle, “How are we farming?” Et cetera.

Matt Baum: 03:59 Right.

John Roulac: 03:59 So that led me to a journey on, “What are solutions?” And organic farming, and [inaudible 00:04:07] culture became clear to me as leading solutions. In the 80s we didn’t call it regenerative agriculture then, regenerative agriculture became popular in the last five years. I’ve been one of the people to help popularize those concepts.

John Roulac: 04:21 I also founded Nutiva in 1999, we were the first food company to say that regenerative agriculture is basically the solution to climate change.

Hemp and regenerative agriculture

Matt Baum: 04:35 Can you give us-

John Roulac: 04:36 It’s not Tesla cars, it’s not solar energy, those are all important, but how do we deal with the legacy load in the atmosphere, take that legacy load that’s also fallen into the oceans, they’re acidifying the oceans, they’re killing off the plankton, which are killing off the sardines, when the no sardines, means the whales and the dolphins and the seals are starving to death, which is what’s going on, they’re washing up dead on the beaches in California, Oregon and Washington.

Matt Baum: 05:03 Right.

John Roulac: 05:03 And the simple solution is under our feet, and it’s called healthy soils, and photosynthesis, in photosynthesis we sequester the carbon. And so, after I stepped down at Nutiva, I decided to kind of enjoy my semi retirement, but then I had the calling to step into the CBD world because the hemp CBD world has been kind of hijacked by the marijuana mavens.

Matt Baum: 05:29 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Roulac: 05:30 And their interest is profit, low cost of goods, market domination.

Matt Baum: 05:38 Right.

John Roulac: 05:38 And soil health and the original vision of why we’re growing hemp was left to the side, and they were just taking market share and selling people without any transparency to the supply chain. So I said how about if we take-

Matt Baum: 05:53 Yeah it’s more, “Grow as much as possible as fast as possible.” Basically.

John Roulac: 05:56 Yeah. So my idea is, “How about if we took the vision of soil health, and regenerative agriculture, and botanicals, and Non-GMO, and helping farmers create a better livelihood for themselves, and their communities, and the environment, climate change, and turn that into a brand? Regenerative Botanicals? Or we shorten it to RE Botanicals?”

Matt Baum: 06:23 Oh, okay.

John Roulac: 06:25 And that was a year ago, when we opened up an office in Boulder, Colorado, we were in four stores, and today we’re in over 1600 stores.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Matt Baum: 06:32 That’s amazing, that is truly amazing. Now let me ask you, can you give me a quick working definition of, “What is regenerative agriculture?” We all know what organic farming is, but what is regenerative agriculture?

John Roulac: 06:44 The idea, regenerative, whether its regenerative agriculture, regenerative business, is that you actually improve the biologic capacity. So for example, regenerative farming, if you go onto a farm, maybe it’s got 2% organic matter. Now 200 years ago there might’ve been 5% or 6% organic matter through the tall grass prairies or meadows. When you deplete the soil, you’re doing degenerative practices, so regenerative agriculture regenerates the soil, regenerates the biologic capacity, so it has the ability to hold more water, so it stores more water. It has more biological activity, more microbes, more soil life. And over time it increases the organic matter, and basically that’s storing the carbon, so regenerative agriculture addresses the climate crisis, the health crisis, the ocean crisis, our farm crisis, and our economic crisis, because if we’re destroying our ecosystems, and we’re destroying our farmlands and destroying our health, you have a collapsed society.

Matt Baum: 08:05 Right.

John Roulac: 08:05 And that’s what we have in 2019.

Matt Baum: 08:06 We have a [crosstalk 00:08:08]

John Roulac: 08:09 We have a society that’s completely collapsing.

Matt Baum: 08:12 It does appear that way, when you read the papers, anymore. Can I ask you, specifically in hemp, what practices are you, RE Botanicals doing in your farms, to regenerate the soil?

John Roulac: 08:25 Yes, Hemp.

Matt Baum: 08:26 I’ve heard that hemp is very easy on soil, and actually leaves it better than it was, is that true?

John Roulac: 08:33 That, in theory, it can be true, in practice it’s mostly not true.

Matt Baum: 08:40 Okay.

John Roulac: 08:42 This is how the marijuana mavens, the pot mavens have been able to, basically pull a fast one over the American consumers. It’s like, “Oh, hemp is a weed, it grows easy, restores land, it’s great.” All that stuff.

Matt Baum: 08:57 That’s all we’ve ever heard, yeah.

John Roulac: 08:59 Yeah, the reality is, hemp is a taker from the soil, not a giver.

Matt Baum: 09:03 Okay.

Fertilizer and growing hemp

John Roulac: 09:04 The reason being is, it likes lots of nitrogen. Like corn, it requires nitrogen to grow, in terms of, if you want to turn it into a seed crop, into a flower crop, or into a fiber crop. It’s hearty enough, you can just throw some seeds out and it will grow, but it’s not going to produce a commercial value by doing that.

Matt Baum: 09:27 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Roulac: 09:28 So what’s the cheapest way to produce fertilizer in the world? It was a German invention, over 100 years ago, and essentially they take, frack, natural gas, destroying our ground waters in the US, and they split that, and they turn it into nitrogen fertilizer.

Matt Baum: 09:53 Really?

John Roulac: 09:53 And then they inject it into the ground, and that’s the way the vast majority of all hemp is grown in America today. So, that’s not so good. The challenge is, when it rains, guess what happens to the nitrogen fertilizer.

Matt Baum: 10:07 Washes away?

John Roulac: 10:08 And where does it wash to?

Matt Baum: 10:09 Right into your ground water.

John Roulac: 10:11 Yeah, the ground water, it also goes into the-

Matt Baum: 10:14 Rivers, lakes, streams.

John Roulac: 10:15 … streams.

Matt Baum: 10:16 Yeah.

John Roulac: 10:16 And then the streams go to the creeks, and then the creeks go to the rivers, and where do the rivers go?

Matt Baum: 10:22 They dump into the ocean eventually, right?

John Roulac: 10:24 Yeah. Did you know we have a dead zone the size of the state of Massachusetts, in the Gulf of Mexico?

Matt Baum: 10:29 I’ve heard that.

John Roulac: 10:29 Everything is biologically dead [crosstalk 00:10:31].

Matt Baum: 10:30 I actually read about that not too long ago.

John Roulac: 10:34 Yeah.

Matt Baum: 10:34 It’s terrifying.

Feeding the Earth naturally

John Roulac: 10:35 So the ironic thing is, taking CBD because you have anxiety, or taking CBD because you have pain, if you just go and put a blindfold on and you pick any bottle off the dispensary, or natural food store, or supermarket, or internet, you may be contributing to killing the planet. So hemp as we know it, is killing the oceans. The bad news is it’s accelerating, it’s not just hemp, it’s corn, [inaudible 00:11:13], industrial, agriculture. 99% of all crops in America are grown using non-organic degenerative practices. Only 1% is certified organic.

John Roulac: 11:25 And regenerative is on top of that. And I’ll get into talk a little about how we grow that in a minute. So again, the bad news is it’s getting worse.

Matt Baum: 11:34 Yeah.

John Roulac: 11:35 More and more emissions, not only from industry, but also from agriculture, polluting the oceans, the plankton, we’re having less oxygen, and we’re having more intense storms, and the window is short, we don’t have 20 years to wait now. We’re right in the point of the breaking. The youth today, they’re telling us, “We’re seeing species collapse right now, not in 10 years, right now. We’re losing mass amounts of species.”

John Roulac: 12:05 The good news is we have a solution. We have a app, it has 500 million years of research and development under its belt, and it’s called photosynthesis.

Matt Baum: 12:14 Yeah.

John Roulac: 12:15 Carbon sequestration. So all we need to do is to allow plants to grow in the right place at the right time, integrated with human knowledge of natural systems, integrating animals. We have tobacco farmers, they grow our hemp, and then the season before, they grow grasses, and then they bring the cattle in.

Matt Baum: 12:41 Sure.

John Roulac: 12:41 The cattle eat the grasses.

Matt Baum: 12:43 Poop on the field.

John Roulac: 12:43 They poop and begin to [inaudible 00:12:48], and now when they plant the hemp they have this naturally fertilized, with transform. It’s not the cow, it’s the how. Industrial animal production is one of the largest contributors to climate change in the world, but if you do it where it’s running off of today’s solar, essentially organic regenerative agriculture runs off today’s solar, and degenerative agriculture runs off of yesterdays solar, i.e petrochemicals. And how we grow on today’s solar, hemp is, that we work with the plants and the animals, so for example we have farmers that will be growing alfalfa.

Matt Baum: 13:29 Right.

John Roulac: 13:29 Or vetch, or cowpeas, they’ll grow those, this season right now, on one field. They won’t be growing hemp, and then that will be fixing nitrogen in the atmosphere, so we work with nature to provide nitrogen, not petrochemicals.

Matt Baum: 13:43 Just through simple crop rotation-

John Roulac: 13:45 Yeah, crop rotation, so that’s the key thing.

Matt Baum: 13:45 … stuff that farmers have been doing for thousands of years, basically.

John Roulac: 13:50 Yeah, and that’s how they used to do it a couple a hundred years ago, or a hundred years ago.

Matt Baum: 13:54 Right.

John Roulac: 13:55 Until this invention. Now there’s some next generation ways to look at this that’s even to the next level that hardly any farms are doing, and we’re just starting to research this, and that’s where you can produce up to 40% of the nitrogen for the hemp crop in the current season you’re growing. So things have just been researched where you grow four, five … You grow vetch, cowpeas-

Matt Baum: 14:26 I’m sorry, what is a vetch? I don’t know what that is.

John Roulac: 14:29 That’s just another cover crop.

Matt Baum: 14:30 Oh, okay, gotcha.

John Roulac: 14:31 Yeah. And then you plant that two weeks before the hemp, so you leet that grow, and so now you have like a multi species salad bar, for microbes.

Matt Baum: 14:46 Okay. And that’s creating nitrogen?

John Roulac: 14:49 [crosstalk 00:14:49]. You go to a salad bar, and all there is, is iceberg lettuce, you go, “Not so interesting.”

Matt Baum: 14:54 Right.

John Roulac: 14:54 But imagine if you go, “Oh, there’s sunflower sprouts, and there are garbanzo beans, and there’s hemp seeds, and there’s some kale, and there’s some [inaudible 00:15:04].”

Matt Baum: 15:04 It’s delicious, of course.

John Roulac: 15:06 Right, it’s like, “Yeah, this is the way to live here.”

Matt Baum: 15:09 So mixing that in like that creates nitrogen?

John Roulac: 15:13 Yeah, some of those crops can fix the nitrogen, we call it salad bar, it’s just multiple plants.

Matt Baum: 15:22 Sure.

John Roulac: 15:22 So some will fix nitrogen, some of them just provide flowers for bees.

Matt Baum: 15:28 Pollinators, yeah.

John Roulac: 15:29 Yeah, pollinators, so you want to put some pollinators. The idea is to increase the biodiversity, and then you come in and you strip-till, in with the hemp, and then the hemp will come in and grow, and so as the hemp is growing up, you have the cover crops and so hemp is planted in a multi-species cover crop, and this is just getting experimented this season, and so we hope to do more of that next year.

Matt Baum: 15:58 You’re basically using these other plants to do a job that chemicals would’ve done?

John Roulac: 16:04 Exactly, yeah.

Matt Baum: 16:05 That’s amazing.

Healing the planet with hemp

John Roulac: 16:06 Yeah, what the food movement and the world needs to understand, we need to be plant-based, but plant-based today means, and I’m going to piss off some vegetarians, but much of the quote, “Plant-based foods.” Are chemical-based.

Matt Baum: 16:30 Right.

John Roulac: 16:30 Like the impossible burger is a chemical-based, it’s not plant-based, because it’s using GMO soy, sprayed with round up, dipped with a bee killing neonics, so you can serve up this soil destroying, greenhouse gas emitting crop, to make a vegan burger.

Matt Baum: 16:51 Sure an animal didn’t die, but we’re destroying farmland to do this.

John Roulac: 16:54 Yes, and so we could be doing organic, where if you’re using peas instead of soy, then peas become part of the rotation, and use it organically. So then that would be plant-based. So the idea is we need to use plants in the more holistic manner, and the degree that we get that will be the degree whether we live as a species or we perish as a species, because it’s time is now. This is not 20 years from now to think about this. In the 90s I got the realization that it was almost too late, in the 90s. I hit the wall, we were losing momentum. So people have to really step up.

Matt Baum: 17:40 Absolutely.

John Roulac: 17:40 So my vision is that while everybody is focused on hemp, everybody’s freaking about hemp. I mean how many people do we know aren’t in pain, don’t have anxiety, depression, stress-related, how many people do you know that don’t have one of those things?

Matt Baum: 17:59 Yeah.

John Roulac: 18:01 Right?

Matt Baum: 18:02 I don’t know but if I find that guy I’m going to kick the crap out of him.

John Roulac: 18:06 Yeah. So everybody’s got this, so while we’re going to be obsessed with this magic pill, this magic flower that you can take and have all of these benefits, imagine if we did it not just for the benefit of the people, but for the benefit of the planet. And so, I have this massive conspiracy that I’m creating, whereas if we can hijack the hemp movement, and say, “How about if we use this as a teaching moment? How about if we take hemp, and it will not only be good for people, but for the planet, and do it in a more organic regenerative way, help for the farmers, our communities, our climate, our people.” I like to say, “Healthy soil.” It all starts with healthy soil.

Matt Baum: 18:51 Right.

John Roulac: 18:52 That leads to healthy plants, that leads to healthy animals and people, healthy planet, healthy oceans, healthy climate, and a healthy healthcare system.

Matt Baum: 18:59 Not to mention the fact that hemp as a crop is something that we haven’t grown for 75 years, so we have a unique chance here to grow the original unmodified plant, and do it the right way.

John Roulac: 19:13 Yeah.

Matt Baum: 19:13 There’s not another crop I can think of like that, in the world.

The Hemp Report Card

John Roulac: 19:16 Yeah. So I encourage all of you. Those of you who are in the CBD industry, and those who are just individuals is, find out, start asking questions. I find it ironic that there was a survey done by one of the leading NGOs in the food movement, called the Center for Food Safety, they’ve sued Monsanto 20 times, they have a million people who signed up on their website, and they’re very focused on organic and healthy soils, and Non-GMO, two thirds of 40 brands, many of the leading brands refused to even fill out the survey.

Matt Baum: 19:53 That’s awful. That’s one of those things where, we just did a show recently, talking about education, where you’ve got to know where it’s coming from, and do the right thing, and make sure they’re making it right and they’re using good hemp and stuff like that, but honestly I didn’t even think that when you go to buy these bottles, not just that, you don’t even know exactly how it’s being grown. You need to think about that.

John Roulac: 20:17 And how it’s processed.

Matt Baum: 20:18 Right.

John Roulac: 20:22 It’s called Center for Food Safety, so people should check that out, and you should consider doing a session with Rebecca, that worked on this thing. And I swear at Expo East, at the Natural Food Show, people were losing their shit, people were going, “You mean, I didn’t put my stuff up on my website, and I didn’t tell people how I grow and process, and you say I get a bad grade, blame the teacher.”

Matt Baum: 20:46 Yeah.

John Roulac: 20:50 A lot of companies got C’s, D’s and F’s. We were the only company that got 100, because we were just very transparent.

Matt Baum: 20:57 Yeah, you report it.

John Roulac: 20:58 Like, “How did you grow it? Did you test it for glyphosate? Do you test not only for CBD levels, cannabinoid levels do you also test for pesticides, herbicides? If you were processing, do you say what you use?” A lot of companies will say, “Oh, we process with CO2.” How many people have heard of that, they say, “We only use CO2.”

Matt Baum: 21:17 Everybody, what does that mean?

John Roulac: 21:19 Not 90%, or more … Well CO2 factories all use ethanol as a final step to clean it up, because the CO2 by itself isn’t so effective.

Matt Baum: 21:33 Really? I had no idea.

John Roulac: 21:35 What do you think the standard way that people … What kind of ethanol do you think they use to process hemp flower to CBD, do you have any idea?

Matt Baum: 21:43 They’re using probably industrial grade ethanol garbage, the same stuff that is probably not even good enough to put it in your car.

John Roulac: 21:51 Yeah. This is ethanol made from Monsanto GMO Corn, laced with roundup glyphosate, because they spray it multiple times on the crop to kill the weeds, et cetera.

Matt Baum: 22:09 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Roulac: 22:10 There’s not a weed in the field. So they’re using that, and then they claim that they’re Non-GMO.

Matt Baum: 22:18 It’s really good up to this step, they’re growing it right, they’re doing everything organic, and then you get to a final point where you’re finishing it, where you’re literally adding terrible stuff right back into your product.

CBD carrier oils

John Roulac: 22:30 Yeah, and then the question is, is what’s your carrier oil, so once you grow it, then you process, what’s your carrier oil. The standard carrier oil in our industry in non-organic MCT oil, hemp oil or olive oil. Those are the three. That’s 95% of all the carriers, and if you really understood health, and you understood botanicals, you would never use any one of those for your carrier oil.

Matt Baum: 22:54 Why is that?

John Roulac: 22:56 First off, lets talk about hemp oil. Hemp oil, as I mentioned before, I’m the founder to Nutiva, we’re the number one selling brand of organic hemp seed oil in North America.

Matt Baum: 23:09 Okay.

John Roulac: 23:09 I have access to it, so why don’t I use it? Because hemp oil goes rancid, it’s got a short shelf life, as soon as you open up [crosstalk 00:23:15] you put it in the refrigerator. But it’s omega 3, and how many people who have tinctures at home, put it in the refrigerator?

Matt Baum: 23:24 I don’t. I keep mine in my bathroom.

John Roulac: 23:27 Nobody does. So people are using rancid oil, and putting it on their tongue and thinking they’re helping themselves. So there’s no reason to use hemp seed oil, unless it’s in a product that’s in the refrigerator. If you came up with a salad dressing with CBD in it, and it said refrigerate after opening, then that’s a different thing.

Matt Baum: 23:49 Sure.

John Roulac: 23:49 Then hemp oil wouldn’t be necessarily a bad carrier. And then olive oil has a little better shelf life than hemp, but still a short shelf life.

Matt Baum: 23:57 Right, still too much fat that’ll go rancid.

John Roulac: 24:00 And the other thing, what does olive oil and hemp oil have in common? They are long chain fats, so they’re like C20, C22. That’s the molecule length.

Matt Baum: 24:10 Okay.

John Roulac: 24:12 MCT coconut oil, medium-chain triglyceride coconut oil is more like C8 and C10, so it’s much smaller, so the small molecule size penetrates through the cell wall. The reason why they call it carrier oil, and remember when you buy a tincture, the majority of what’s in it is a carrier oil, it’s not even CBD.

Matt Baum: 24:35 Right, it’s just an oil that’s carrying the CBD, literally.

John Roulac: 24:38 Yeah. And the point of the carrier is to carry it through the cell wall into the cells and into our organs.

Matt Baum: 24:44 So the smaller the molecule, the better it’s going to carry it, more or less.

John Roulac: 24:48 Exactly. So we think organic MCT coconut oil is the gold standard. We pay a much higher price for it, but that’s why we use it. Now the majority of companies that use MCT oil, use non-organic MCT coconut oil, because it’s again, it’s cheaper.

Matt Baum: 25:02 Of course.

John Roulac: 25:03 And as long as you want to go as bigger, faster, cheaper, you’re going to use the cheaper stuff. Do you have any idea how they make non-organic MCT coconut oil?

Matt Baum: 25:13 I can only imagine.

John Roulac: 25:15 The ironic thing is, how many companies have you heard in the CBD business that talk about their carrier oils?

Matt Baum: 25:21 I’ve only talked to a couple that have brought it up, and when I do talk to those people, my first thought is, “All right, these people know what they’re talking about, they’re paying attention.”

John Roulac: 25:29 Yeah.

Matt Baum: 25:30 But they’re few and far in between, really.

John Roulac: 25:32 Yeah, that gives you an idea. They never talk about your carrier oil. I’ve been to the Philippines 30 times, part of my pioneering virgin coconut oil, with Nutiva, back in the last 15 … So it’s 2003, that’s when I started selling virgin coconut oil, pioneering that. So I’ve been to the Philippines 30 times, been to all these mills. So, there’s two pathways in processing coconut in the Philippines and many of the tropical countries.

John Roulac: 26:01 The first one is the fresh one, and that’s what we use, but the vast majority is not fresh coconuts. Basically the farmer harvest the coconut, maybe they’re in a rural area, they’re up on a high road, they’re up a mountain, and so they don’t have access closer to the mill where the fresh nuts go. So they chop the coconut, they scoop the meat out they just lay it out on the roadside, they lay it out on some dusty boxes or whatever it is.

Matt Baum: 26:28 Right.

John Roulac: 26:28 It starts to mold, it gets black, [crosstalk 00:26:32]. It’s kind of not the nicest thing.

Matt Baum: 26:37 Yeah.

John Roulac: 26:37 So then they scoop it out, and then some guy comes by in a truck, and they throw it in with all the other ones, and then this kind of blackened coconut meat gets sent to big mills. And it’s stacked up a like four or five story high building, and I go into these and then there’s trucks going by, and there’s grease on the pavement, where it’s sitting.

John Roulac: 26:57 It sits there and then they have to go and bleach it and deodorize it, they use a lot of chemicals and now they’ve sterilized it, and then once they do that, then they have to fraction it further, to separate the solid fat to the liquid.

Matt Baum: 27:16 So literally making oil out of garbage.

John Roulac: 27:18 Yeah. And that oil’s got this kind of yellow tinge to it, it doesn’t smell very good, it doesn’t taste very good.

Matt Baum: 27:23 So you’ve got to do something to it to make it smell better and taste better to.

John Roulac: 27:28 And if you look at the leading brands of CBD, that’s what they use.

Matt Baum: 27:33 Because it’s cheap, that’s why, because people are going to add flavor to it, and you’re not going to know.

John Roulac: 27:39 Yeah, you don’t know. So here’s how the fresh coconuts are made. So you take the fresh coconuts, once they get to the mill they cure there for a few weeks just to get to the right amount of water and fat.

Matt Baum: 27:53 Right.

John Roulac: 27:54 But they’re not opened, and then once they’re open, they immediately scoop the meat out, and then it’s dried, so once it’s exposed to the oxygen, they dry it, they remove all the water and now they convert that into the virgin coconut oil press, into the oil press. So now have this virgin coconut oil, and then from there, and this is done in Indonesia, and from there then it’s sent to Singapore, and it goes to a special facility, there’s only one in the world that knows how to do this, and they slowly cool it down, and then they spin it through a centrifuge process, and they separate out the lauric acid, and that’s being used by different companies like Procter & Gamble and other ones, they use this lauric acid for soaps or specialty medicines and things.

Matt Baum: 28:46 Right.

John Roulac: 28:46 With the liquid part, the C8 and C10, then we put that in [inaudible 00:28:52], and then it’s shipped over to the US, and Nutiva is the number one seller of that, and we source that from Nutiva, and many other companies that are doing it right, actually source that. So if you’re in the CBD industry and you want to do it right, you know where to get that.

Making healthy, sustainable CBD

Matt Baum: 29:10 So in a nutshell, when we are making our CBD purchase we need to ask ourselves, “Does this company grow their hemp correctly in an organic way? Are they doing it in a way that is good for the soil also?” Next, “Are they doing it with a responsible carrier oil, that is grown the right way?” And then finally, “Are they using an extraction method that’s not adding this stuff, we’re trying to get away from right back into it?”

John Roulac: 29:39 Yeah, exactly.

Matt Baum: 29:41 Good God.

John Roulac: 29:43 It’s important.

Matt Baum: 29:44 I feel guilty just as a host on this show, and I’m learning. Part of this whole show is my education to CBD as well. I came into this as a podcaster. I am learning, and it makes me want to go back an edit some things that were even said on this show. I never thought of stuff like this, it’s incredible. It seems like such a completely uphill battle. Other than doing it yourself, and like you said, I like that you used the word conspiracy, and hijack, I like that a lot, what else can we do? Just demand this in our companies, just make-

John Roulac: 30:18 I think the best thing that people could do, is to go to the Instagram pages, and the Facebook pages of the CBD companies that you buy, or you bought from, where you question and ask them, “Can you tell me how you grow? Can you tell me how you process?”

Matt Baum: 30:38 I love it, it’s guerrilla social warfare.

John Roulac: 30:40 And not just CO2, not just, “Oh, we do natural farming methods.” What does that mean?

Matt Baum: 30:45 Yeah, “What is natural? It’s grown on earth, oh you mean it’s grown on the planet, thanks.”

John Roulac: 30:51 I think the presidency there is natural.

Matt Baum: 30:52 Yeah, I’m sure it’s real natural, it’s a very natural color certainly.

John Roulac: 30:57 Yeah.

Matt Baum: 30:57 No I like that, it’s like social guerrilla warfare, call them out and see if they can answer the questions.

John Roulac: 31:02 Yeah, so do that. I think going to go to the study, the hemp report card that just came out last week in September, from the Center For Food Safety, get that report card and look at that and call up the companies and ask them questions.

Matt Baum: 31:20 Yeah, definitely.

John Roulac: 31:22 And one of the things that we’re proud of at RE Botanicals is, we’re the first certified organic, vertically integrated, flower to bottle operation.

Matt Baum: 31:34 That’s amazing.

John Roulac: 31:35 So, let me explain that. The vast majority of all CBD companies outsource their manufacturing, growing, processing, and packaging, and bottling.

Matt Baum: 31:47 Of course.

John Roulac: 31:47 Because we want to shake the industry up, and we’re able to do that, and so we merged with a company called Palmetto Harmony, Janel is the founder, her daughter is named Harmony, she’s a special needs child. Had a lot of tremors, a lot of issues, and Janel was tired of getting the hemp oil hustler, bad quality hemp seed oil-

Matt Baum: 32:17 Right.

John Roulac: 32:17 … In 2014, so she created this company, now we’ve merged, and now it’s RE Botanicals, and we also have a Palmetto Harmony branch. We work with the farmers, we actually grow some ourselves, and we work with the farmers, we bring it to our facility, and then we extract it, we have two types of extractions, I’ll come to talk about that in a moment, so we extract it, and then we take that, and then we further process it, and then we blend it with the organic MCT coconut oil, and other botanicals, like essential oil from orange or peppermint, we only use natural flavors, and then we package it. And there’s no company in the industry that does all of that, that’s certified organic. Maybe there’s somebody that’s got like a tiny little shed on his farm somewhere.

Matt Baum: 33:06 Right.

John Roulac: 33:06 But no one that’s in supermarkets and natural food stores that we know of, we think that really gives an advantage, so we send it all up for the testing. So we’re pretty excited.

Matt Baum: 33:20 Yeah.

John Roulac: 33:20 But in the, “How we process.” So there’s two ways we process. RE Botanicals has been based on certified organic alcohol extraction and we take organic not from GMO ethanol or also people call it alcohol, so we take organic cane, from cane sugar, we take an ethanol that’s done there, so there’s no GMOs, certified organic. It’s much more expensive, and then we use that, mix in the flowers, we cool it down, really low temperature, and then we take that process, we extract it, we decarb it so it’s heated to release the CBD.

Matt Baum: 34:03 Sure.

John Roulac: 34:03 There’s companies that are selling CBD that is not even decarbed, and people aren’t getting the benefits. I have some people say, like last night I was with [inaudible 00:34:13] executive, I won’t say who, but one of the top executives, one of the biggest natural food companies in the world, and she says, “Yeah, I got a sore wrist.” And she’s been taking on one of the leading brands, it was one of the marijuana brands, and she’s been using, she doesn’t get any benefit. She says, “Is this just placebo, or what’s the deal? I don’t get any-“

Matt Baum: 34:31 When you say decarbed, what does that mean?

John Roulac: 34:34 Decarbed means, you have to go through a Decarboxylation process, so it heats it up so it activates. You need to heat it to activate the CBD.

Matt Baum: 34:45 Right.

John Roulac: 34:45 So anyways, she put one of our … We have a roll-on product that’s made from alcohol extraction, and all of a sudden her wrist was getting better, and she says, “I’ve been using this other stuff for weeks and nothing.”

Matt Baum: 35:02 “Congratulations, you’re moisturizing.” At that point, basically.

John Roulac: 35:06 Yeah, so we have the alcohol process and that’s the traditional way hemp [inaudible 00:35:14] since the 1800s, we’ve had hemp apothecary, they didn’t call it hemp, it was just cannabis sativa, but in 1850 they were blending it and using it as old-fashioned medicines in America. And that went on until the 1930s, and then the pharmaceutical industry shut down the apothecary movement, including hemp.

Matt Baum: 35:33 We did a show all about that, the history of hemp.

John Roulac: 35:35 Yeah, with the history of apothecary, there’s Lloyd Museum in Ohio, you should interview the Lloyd Museum people.

Matt Baum: 35:44 Lloyd Museum, I’m taking notes on this while you’re telling me this.

John Roulac: 35:47 Massive knowledge. On our website we have a timeline from the 1850s to now, so we think apothecary, the alcohol extraction is kind of tried and true, we like it a little better than CO2, some people like CO2 to do this. But the other thing, we have another way we process also, and that is lipid infusion.

Matt Baum: 36:08 Yeah.

John Roulac: 36:09 Or our MCT flower infusion.

Matt Baum: 36:12 I just talked to a guy about lipid infusion a few weeks ago on an earlier show. We’d been talking extraction on the show, lipid infusion is very cool.

John Roulac: 36:19 Yeah, so this is what Janel, from Palmetto Harmony, my partner, now COO of the company, and she’s been a real pioneer in one of the leading hemp CBD, and when I went out to her greenhouses, it was like, “Oh, she’s got organic compost, oh she’s got all the different things.”

Matt Baum: 36:40 That’s awesome.

John Roulac: 36:41 She was using certified organic medium, before it was even hip. So I was like, “Well, this is good.”

Matt Baum: 36:47 Right, “It’s just the right way to do it, we’re not trying to be cool, this is just the right way to do it.”

John Roulac: 36:51 Yeah, so we take the MCT, and of course we use the organic MCT coconut oil, so you take the coconut oil, first you’ve got to decarb the flower, then you put it into the organic MCT coconut oil, and then it essentially soaks, and soaks up and extracts that CBD just being in this warm oil.

Matt Baum: 37:15 Right, just naturally the fat just clings to it, it pulls it and lines to it.

John Roulac: 37:19 Yeah, and it just comes out a bit.

Matt Baum: 37:20 But you have to wait, that’s it.

John Roulac: 37:22 Yeah, and then you just hit a spigot, it’s like a brewery process. And that’s got more of a rootsy, kind of herbal flavor.

Matt Baum: 37:33 I would really like to try that.

John Roulac: 37:35 And many of her customers are moms with special need kids, and a lot of her customers are for that, and so those are the two methods we use, the MCT flower infusion, also called lipid infusion.

Matt Baum: 37:53 Right.

John Roulac: 37:54 And then that alcohol extraction.

Matt Baum: 37:56 I wanted to ask you earlier, the cane that you guys get, does that come from the Philippines as well?

John Roulac: 38:00 From Brazil.

Matt Baum: 38:01 From Brazil, okay. So this is just … You guys are completely punk rock about this, you didn’t like the way something was being done, so you said, “Screw it, we’re going to do it, all of it, our way, and we’re going to control every aspect of it, so we know it’s being done that way.” I love that punk rock sensibility. That’s very cool.

John Roulac: 38:20 Yeah. I was a punk in the early 80s.

Matt Baum: 38:23 I had a feeling, there was a little rabble-rouser to your voice, I couldn’t help but notice when you started talking about this stuff.

Closing thoughts

Matt Baum: 38:34 John was amazing to talk to, and I want to thank Christy at RE Botanicals for helping set this up. RE Botanicals are so serious about their beliefs that last Friday, the 27th, during the climate strike, their website was closed for business. If you went there, there was actually a link to an animated video that explained organic regenerative agriculture, and I’ve got to say, that’s pretty amazing. Just being closed for 24 hours to make a statement.

Matt Baum: 39:00 Well hemp isn’t the only answer, of course we’d like to see changes like this across the spectrum of agriculture. It is important that people getting into hemp and hemp farmers realize that while we’re starting this anew, there’s a better way to do it than the old way, and I’m glad that there’s people like John, and companies like RE Botanicals out there that are doing it the right way.

Matt Baum: 39:33 Well that about does it for this episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast. As always you can find a complete written transcript of the show in the notes, along with links to RE Botanicals, to the trailer for Kiss The Ground, the movie that John has been working on and so much more, and of course you can always find links to the Ministry of Hemp top brands in our Top Brands section on the website ministryofhemp.com, if you like what you hear, let me know, because the Ministry of Hemp podcast is produced, edited, written and performed by me. And if you really want to help us out and help spread information like this to people that need to hear it, do me a favor and leave this podcast a review on iTunes, give us a star rating or go to your favorite podcast app and gives us a thumbs up or whatever they do there. It really does help, it pushes us up in search results, it’s the least you can do to help this show out.

Matt Baum: 40:31 We always want to hear from you at the Ministry of Hemp, so you can hit us up on our Twitter @ministryofhemp, Facebook /ministryofhemp, or you can call me at 402-819-6417 and leave a message at the Ministry of Hemp hotline. I’ve been doing some question and answer shows with Kit, the editor and chief at ministryofhemp.com, and it’s been fantastic. Your questions have been great, a lot of medical related stuff, and again we’re not doctors, I’m going to repeat that over and over again, but we can find the information you need, so please, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you.

Matt Baum: 41:08 Next time on the show we’re going to continue our series on women working in hemp, when I talk to Jane Pinto of First Crop, Jane is great, and I can’t wait for you guys to hear that interview, but for now, remember to take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions, will you?

Matt Baum: 41:25 This is the Ministry of Hemp, signing off.

The post Regenerative Agriculture, Hemp and Saving the World with John Roulac appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

A pioneering hemp company is helping to reduce cannabis waste and clean up our oceans.

Update December 16, 2020: Sana Packaging founders visited the Ministry of Hemp podcast to discuss how they started their hemp plastic packaging company, after forming Ron Vasak-Smith, CEO, and James Eichner

The cannabis industry produces massive amounts of single-use plastic. The packaging regulations instituted in many legal cannabis states make single-use plastic almost mandatory.

Sana Packaging is helping to change this pollution problem. In our new video, hemp advocate Cait Curley talks with Ron Basak-Smith, CEO of Sana Packaging. Basak-Smith explains how Sana started, and how they are pioneering innovative hemp and ocean plastic solutions for the cannabis industry.

Thanks to Cait Curley for filming this interview for Ministry of Hemp!

More about cannabis waste & hemp plastic

We previously interviewed Sana Packaging last year:

Here are some other articles about the immense potential of hemp plastic and hemp sustainability:

• Hemp Will Change The World
• Recycling Hemp & Cannabis Bio-Waste
• Why Isn’t Hemp Plastic Everywhere?

The post Reducing Cannabis Waste With Ocean & Hemp Plastic appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

For the longest time, hemp activists had to convince people (especially, lawmakers) of the differences between hemp and marijuana.

Now that it’s becoming common knowledge, we have a bigger issue on our hands: convincing people that we need to start incorporating hemp into our lives. If you or anyone you know still needs persuasion, Jen Hobbs latest book, “American Hemp,” will do just that.

Available now from Skyhorse Publishing, these 290 pages are much more than just a catalog of hemp information. Hobbs ties hemp to the many aspects of our society that continue to substantially harm the earth, from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) allowance of harmful chemicals being sprayed throughout American neighborhoods to the toxic oil spills continuing to pile up in our oceans.

And through these dark realities, Hobbs offers insight on how hemp can help us.

“It’s important to address any misconceptions people might have about hemp,” Hobbs explained to us. “I hope to help people understand what the plant is capable of. To give them an overview of what the plant does and offer realistic scenarios on how it can help our economy and environment.”

This book not only explains the potential benefits hemp for enriching our planet, but also how we can encourage lawmakers to make hemp easier to access.

THE NECESSITY OF AMERICAN HEMP

In 2016, Hobbs and Jesse Venture co-wrote “Marijuana Manifesto.” An inside look at all the benefits of cannabis, one chapter was dedicated specifically to hemp. Hobbs realized she had much more to say about this topic.

“There was just so much information I wanted to research further and expand upon,” Hobbs said.

The unfortunate truth is the general public and politicians continue to confuse hemp with marijuana. For Hobbs, this was one of the biggest motivations in writing “American Hemp.”

However, “American Hemp,” also offers a lot of information that isn’t about hemp itself. Rather, it’s about the ways in which other industries have negatively impacted our environment and economy. Through this information, Hobbs goes on to offer enlightening ideas of how hemp can solve these issues. Or, at least, be a part of the solution.

HEMP AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Climate change, deforestation, chemicals filling our soil, and waste products floating in our oceans. Both environmentalists and policymakers have been trying to solve these problems for years. Unfortunately, with every bit of effort they put in, it seems industry finds a way to produce worse harm.

Take what the book refers to as “America’s Lead Epidemic” as an example. According to the EPA, lead poisoning is the number one environmental health risk for American children. Not only is it found in various public and private water pipes, but it’s found as a base in housepaint and even pollutes the soil of our backyards.

In turn, many children are threatened by irreversible brain damage due to the escalated amount of lead in our environment.

Yet, hemp offers a solution. Because hemp “soaks up” toxic chemicals, places like Italy cultivate cannabis plants for pollution clean up. It’s not just effective, but cost-efficient too. Hemp saves the Italian people and government stacks of money compared with other clean up methods.

The country is currently digging up contaminated soil in various public spaces and replacing it with non-polluted soil. However, this takes years to complete and costs millions of dollars. Hemp is not only cheap but can clean up the soil — at least, to some degree — within one cultivation season.

This is simply one example of what Hobbs offers within “American Hemp” about how this plant can improve our environment.

‘AMERICAN HEMP’ ASKS: CAN HEMP SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS?

“Within the last chapter, I talk about the Green New Deal and how we’re trying to move away from fossil fuels and how we’re trying to make an effort to go towards more eco-friendly products, ” Hobbs said. “And hemp already does that.”

Whether it’s biodegradable plastics, hempcrete (which creates carbon-negative buildings), or a clean source of energy, hemp’s environmental benefits seem infinite. This only grows more true as research continues. Many people look towards hemp as a possible solution to the earth’s devastation.

“There’s a lot of areas we’ve researched for and [hemp] just hasn’t had the chance because it’s been illegal,” Hobbs advocated. “We haven’t been able to capitalize on that and see what’s possible.”

The truth of the matter is hemp offers too many possibilities to ignore. Whether it’s cleaning the air, soil, or water — there’s a long list of benefits as to what hemp can do for our planet. And though some efforts have been taken, the world still hasn’t witnessed a major revolution to really make these efforts worthwhile.

Unfortunately, the damage done to the earth does go beyond hemp’s capabilities. Hobb’s book mentions this and even offers a few alternative solutions outside the cannabis plant.

Yet, there’s no reason we shouldn’t begin using hemp as a means of cleaning up our environment. The difficulty is no longer in science. There’s plenty of research and ability to begin using the crop for a variety of problems nature currently faces.

The difficulty is convincing those in power of these benefits.

HEMP PROHIBITION: A CONTINUING STRUGGLE

Yes, hemp is now legal. But prohibition really damaged public insight into hemp’s benefits. Though we may be well aware of this already, politicians and lawmakers are still wary of using something that’s been connected to a psychoactive drug for so long.

Though hemp is legal on a federal level, states still have the ability to ban it from their respective territories. Similarly to how states have been able to legalize recreational cannabis even though it’s still federally illegal.

Idaho is a prime example of this scenario, where the state government recently voted against growing hemp.

Because this hemp bill failed, Idahoian farmers can be prosecuted if caught growing the plant. Since this conflicts with federal law, the Gem State was practically forced to write up a bill that allows transporters of hemp to pass through their state. Yet, if they’re caught unloading it or transporting without a permit, they will be charged.

The biggest issue with federal legalization is it hasn’t offered enough guidance to states to separately develop their own laws surrounding hemp. In turn, some have opted to ban hemp as though prohibition still exists unchanged while others — preferably, those states who’ve already embraced hemp — now have the ability to flourish.

Yet, Hobbs is well aware this battle is only going to continue. And she offers insight as to what we can do to fight back.

THE POWER OF BUYING HEMP

Within the film “Food Inc.” we’re taught that each purchase we make at the grocery store is a vote for which companies continue to expand. The very same is true for hemp.

“If any form of confrontation is too much to handle, then the easiest way to promote hemp is to purchase hemp products,” Hobbs wrote in her book.

“Make a silent statement with what you choose to buy, what you choose to wear, and where you choose to shop. This might seem a bit silly, but the more people who buy hemp and support the industry, the more justification we have that hemp is a necessity.”

If the demand for hemp continues to rise, the industry must deliver. Our purchase has more power in it than we may be led to believe. At the end of the day, we as consumers are the ones in charge of how this industry plays out.

USING OUR VOICE TO SUPPORT HEMP

We’ve come a very long way in our battle for prohibition. Just a couple of years ago, federal legalization seemed merely a dream. Now that it’s a reality, it’s safe to say our confidence in convincing legislators to become pro-hemp is strong.

This was one of the biggest influences for “American Hemp.” Though the book will help in our continuing efforts to convince the public, it holds even bigger importance. The information contained within these 290 pages offers more than enough arguments to influence our local politicians. All of which are backed by hundreds of reference sources.

“For us [Hobbs and her husband], at least for the immediate future, to try to be as helpful as we can locally,” she proclaimed. “To make sure we can continue to have access to hemp.”

You can check out Hobbs’ “American Hemp” blog for more from her about hemp.

The post ‘American Hemp’ Review: New Book Offers Guide To All Of Hemp’s Benefits appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.