Sheldon Kramer uses three words to defend the environmental benefits of industrial hemp farming in South Africa: zero carbon footprint.
“Hemp absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2),” enthused the president of the KwaZulu Hemp Association and CEO of the KwaZulu Hemp Processors. “Some controlled cultivation operations for pharmaceuticals actually introduce CO2 into the cultivation environment to promote plant growth. So if you want to solve your carbon emissions problem, consider growing sugar cane. Grow cannabis. It's really that simple.”
Kramer, known as Bobby Greenhash, said hemp seeds were planted in the ground and grew just like weeds during his “large-scale cultivation” operation in KwaZulu-Natal.
“No water was given. There was no fertilizer or compost. Nothing,” he said of his flagship research project at Escho.
“This was placed in a fallow sugarcane field to set a benchmark to see how the particular strains we are rolling out and introducing within the KwaZulu-Natal region will grow… And I didn't give it any water or anything, and it grew within 90 days. It's over 8 meters tall, which is great for the fibers.”
But industrial hemp has so many uses and benefits that it's “looking at everything from cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, biomass, textiles, textiles, plastics, and biofuels.” When harvesting, the leaves that naturally fall off as they dry in the field re-nitrify the soil, meaning the nitrates don't need to be put back into the soil, they're already there…and you don't need fertilizer or anything to grow them. There's no need for pesticides.”
He cited a local project he is running that involves macadamia farmers growing hemp as windbreaks between rows of macadamia trees. Traditionally, cinnamon grass was used. “But with hemp, you can harvest cash every 90 days. And even though it's nitrifying the soil, it receives runoff from the irrigation of the Mac trees, so they don't have to water it. . As a complementary or complimentary crop, it's insane.”
One plant has many uses
In his 2023 State of the Union address, President Cyril Ramaphosa reiterated his government's commitment to opening up the hemp and cannabis sector to investment in 2022, which could create over 130,000 jobs. He pointed out that there is. In 2022, the President suggested that the value of the hemp and cannabis sector could be R406 billion by 2026.
“We are working to create the conditions for this sector to grow,” he said last year. “Urgent work is [the] Governments are seeking to create an enabling environment for a good purpose approach to complementary medicines, food, cosmetics and industrial products, all factory-wide, in line with international agreements and best practices. ”
Hemporium, founded in 1996 as Africa's first cannabis/hemp company, says industrial hemp is a relative of the psychoactive dagga (marijuana), but is grown in a completely different way.
An area identified as a focus for industrial hemp is agrifiber for automotive parts such as dashboards and door panels. Environmentally friendly paper. Natural cement for housing, bricks, insulation, animal bedding, nutrition from seeds rich in essential fatty acids.
“Hemp is a descriptive term referring to non-psychoactive uses and varieties of the cannabis plant,” said Hemporium Director and Co-Founder Tony Budden. “These include textile products (textiles), nutritional products, construction materials, biocomposites, cosmetics, fuels, pharmaceuticals, paper, etc.”
Regarding the environmental benefits of industrial hemp, Budden says, “One plant has multiple uses, requires no pesticides or herbicides, conditions the soil, absorbs carbon, and uses less water than cotton. There is less volume and no waste.”
“One of the characteristics of hemp is that it is clearly valued for its environmental friendliness. This is one of the reasons cotton cultivation is being promoted compared to the amount of fertilizers and pesticides required.
Although there are environmental impacts from monoculture crops like hemp, it is a rotational crop and has a very short harvest period. “It takes three to four months, especially if you're growing it for fiber. You can double use the land, so you rotate it with winter crops. Wherever it rains in the summer, supplementary water is available. It's hardly necessary.”
Some carbon is always produced during the harvesting or processing stage, “but most of it is offset by the amount of carbon that hemp absorbs while growing, which makes it a better crop than zero-carbon crops.” added Budden. This is especially true in the construction sector.
“We're replacing bricks and cement, which produce a lot of net carbon, with hemp concrete, which is a mixture of hemp and lime,” he said, adding that through the process of calcification, the lime and hemp combine to create calcium carbonate. It was explained that it forms. “And it absorbs carbon during drying, so carbon sequestration occurs in this process as well as in cultivation.”
ancient use
Industrial hemp is a plant belonging to the botanical classification. cannabis sativa These are cultivars and are grown specifically for industrial use, according to Ian du Plooy and the Agricultural Research Council's Vegetables, Industrial Crops and Medicinal Plants Campus (ARC-VIMP) cannabis team.
He said the plant has a close historical relationship with humans and has been used by various civilizations since ancient times for its fiber, seeds and oil. With hemp declared as an agricultural crop, the cultivation, research and sale of hemp in South Africa is now legal for permit holders. “We don't have much experience with hemp production in South Africa, but the legalization of hemp has renewed interest in this versatile plant.”
ARC-VIMP worked with the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development on a comprehensive research program on industrial hemp. Initial results from variety evaluation trials in all nine provinces show that most hemp varieties are photoperiod-sensitive, with significant growth in traditional producing regions such as the Eastern Cape and Western Cape, as well as in KwaZulu-Natal, which has longer photoperiods. It was confirmed that they are better adapted to specific regions.
Mr du Plooy noted that some varieties had been identified as being adaptable to other production regions such as Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo, although “economic viability” had not yet been confirmed.
Fighting climate change and pollution
South Africa, like the rest of the world, is experiencing the effects of climate change.
Pollution in many agricultural production areas is mainly caused by human activities due to global warming, accumulation of heavy metals in the soil, and destruction of biodiversity. Irresponsible management of metals from mines and mine waste, municipal waste, rainwater from power lines, fertilizers, pesticides, and sewage “leads much land unfit for cultivation.”
Although local experience and knowledge are still limited, “hemp has potential for phytoremediation (using plants to clean up contaminated environments) and carbon sequestration (storing or capturing carbon). Very likely.
“Phytoremediation, which uses specific plants to remove metal contaminants from soil, appears to be a viable and sustainable method for remediating contaminated soil. It has a fibrous root system and is adapted to a wide range of soil conditions.
Industrial hemp can absorb metals and store them in different parts of the plant without any negative effects on the plant itself. Hemp grown for phytoremediation of contaminated soils also produces marketable products used in bioenergy production, wood fiber, pulp, and animal feed.
Hemp's carbon capture capacity is “impressive”, he added, pointing to a University of Cambridge study that revealed how one hectare of hemp can absorb between 8 and 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
“Forests, by comparison, absorb between 2 and 6 tonnes, depending on the type of tree and region. Unlike other crops and trees, the CO2 absorbed by industrial hemp is trapped within the fibers. “The fibers are used in a variety of applications, from textiles and paper to construction materials,” he said.
He added that cannabis cultivation could play an important role in mitigating the negative impacts of climate change and pollution in the country, with the potential for soil remediation and carbon credit capture.
novel products
The February 2023 Cannabis Report by the Economic Justice Institute notes that cannabis has many potential uses. “In the long term, if environmental policies encourage hemp-based alternatives to cotton, petroleum-based plastics, and some traditional cement-based building materials through the use of hempcrete, hemp could become the largest cannabis market. There is a possibility that
However, these are relatively new products with undeveloped value chains and end markets. “South Africa lacks the processing and manufacturing capacity to connect growers to markets…While industrial policy support for investment in cannabis processing is important, the more fundamental challenge is market creation.”
For Kramer, the sky is the limit. “His 80% of the plastics that go to BMW are hemp-based plastics, so it will reduce BMW's carbon tax. We are looking to enter those markets,” he said.
“This crop has the potential to be the next largest GDP contributor within the KwaZulu-Natal region and, as it doesn't grow everywhere, we expect geography to play a big role in the future.”