Hemp Cultivation: Between Opportunism and Resilience

Hemp allows for multiple uses

With increasing global environmental awareness, hemp is naturally seen as an opportunity. Its origins are believed to date back to the Neolithic period, and the Canebière was a global hub for hemp trade between the 14th and 17th centuries: an ancestral, resilient practice. It also offers a multitude of uses when cultivated.

Among the most well-known examples are construction, insulation, and automotive materials; food, biofuels, and fuels. We can also mention the fields of medicine and pharmacy: hemp flowers, and CBD-based products more generally, generate much discussion. While some benefits are recognized, the vast majority of cannabinoids and their mechanisms of action still remain misunderstood.

The hemp plant, a boon for farmers?

All these previously described uses meet growing needs. A boon for farmers? Economically, it would seem so. Let's now look at the ecological characteristics of the hemp plant. First, its cultivation requires no inputs or irrigation. This strengthens the resilience attributed to it. Hemp also has a deep root system that structures the soil while restoring nitrogen.

This helps preserve the soil's nutrients and fertilizers. The hemp plant excels at storing CO2. It is estimated that one hectare of hemp stores 15 tons of CO2 per year, as much as one hectare of forest. Finally, the hemp plant requires almost zero maintenance between seeding and harvesting... in addition to smothering weeds due to its rapid growth!

The awareness that it is urgent to prioritize ecological crops is progressing strongly among farmers, especially those of the new generation.

In the face of global warming, the trend now seems inexorable, like a tidal wave. The need to produce healthy, safe, and sustainable products is also popular among consumers. Environmentally friendly crops are thus destined for significant growth in the coming decades. Hemp is undeniably among them.

• - The plant attracts the interest of industrialists and entrepreneurs worldwide as its uses can be multiple: fabrics, ropes, construction and insulation materials, automotive plastics (fibers), fuels, biofuels, cosmetics, human food (hemp oil rich in omega 3 and 6, for example) and animal feed (seeds, hempseed), medicines (Sativex, etc...), products from the well-being hemp sector, or in other words, products based on cannabidiol CBD, etc...
• - Forgotten for many decades under the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, hemp has recently seen unprecedented enthusiasm in medical research. New drugs are gradually being approved. We speak of medical cannabis or hemp, or even therapeutic cannabis or hemp. While the therapeutic qualities of hemp, including in its natural form (CBD flowers), are now being rediscovered with force, the plant still holds many secrets: the functioning of most cannabinoids remains misunderstood today.
• - Given the ongoing climate catastrophe, agronomists are finally rediscovering that ecological hemp cultivation is very environmentally friendly. It is this last point that interests us here and which is developed further in this article.

Here's why hemp is today one of the most environmentally friendly crops in the world:

• - Thanks in particular to its deep root system (up to 3.5 m) and taproot, hemp is a drought-resistant crop; it requires very little water to grow. There is generally no need for irrigation. As drought affects more and more regions of the globe, this makes it a crop that offers hope to many farmers worldwide, trapped by the unfavorable evolution of soils, climate, and biodiversity.
• - Ecological hemp cultivation requires no inputs in terms of phytosanitary products: no insecticides, no fungicides, no herbicides!
• - Hemp returns nitrogen to the soil, unlike cotton, for example, which depletes the soil's nutrients, especially if it is not used in rotation with other crops.
• - Hemp stores CO2 in its structures and thus contributes to the fight against global warming. The absorption capacity of one hectare of hemp is estimated at approximately 15 tons of CO2 per year, as much as one hectare of forest.
• - Hemp is a plant with a root system that structures the soil and enhances all the fertilizing elements of the soil.
• - Thanks to the height and density of the crop, hemp also serves as a good reservoir of biodiversity for, (source European Industrial Hemp Association / InterChanvre) "hygrophilous and ombrophilous species of rare and ecologically fragile forest-type insects and arthropods: spiders, beetles, predatory flies and wasps,". These species are regulators (predators) of crop pests.