A bill by Rep. Clay Schexnayder would legalize industrial hemp
Louisiana’s 2019 legislative session is underway, and a bill by Rep. Clay Schexnayder would legalize industrial hemp as authorized by the recently passed Farm Bill.
”Industrial hemp is an alternative specialty high value crop with the potential to create new industries and enhance economic development for Louisiana,” Schexnayder stated in a press release.
Since today is Earth Day, and since hemp is an eco-friendly, sustainable building material, we thought we’d check in with a local farmer, Jacob of Breathing Waters, and a local builder, Kayne LaGraize of LaGraize Builders, to find out how its legalization could revolutionize their industries.
Jacob says legalization would allow him to enter a booming market, diversify his farm’s income streams, and invest in additional farmland.
“There are thousands of other uses for hemp besides CBD, from building materials and animal feed to cloth,” Jacob said. “You can create textiles out of hemp, which requires a lot less pesticides, water and bleach than cotton. It is a way more environmentally friendly product.”
For LaGraize, hemp offers an affordable, sustainable alternative to lumber, which has skyrocketed in price and dropped in quality. That’s because old-growth wood, which grew over hundreds of years, has largely been depleted. The old-growth wood is denser and more resistant to decay than wood cut from younger trees.
“I did historic renovations, and that was good, hard pine, but that was an 800-year-old tree. Everything we’re getting now is soft pine,” LaGraize said. ”There’s such a high demand that we are getting more and more inferior materials.”
However, hemp can be used as a tough yet biodegradable building composite. Mixed together, hemp and lime undergo a chemical reaction to form hempcrete—a fire-, mildew-, mold-, and termite-resistant material that’s 10 times stronger than concrete.
“Hempcrete is a sustainable building material you can use instead of fiberglass or plastic,” Jacob said. “It makes sense to build a house of that, and it’s breathable and perfect for the humid environment we live in.”
LaGraize has already used hemp as a building material, just to test its potential. He created a 700-foot driveway with hemp stalks and brick pavers. He also built a 400-square-foot, hemp-wrapped house with a flat lean-to roof on his property by Lake St. Catherine.
“I love that hemp can grow in many different environments,” LaGraize said.
In addition to its industrial uses, hemp can replenish nitrogen-depleted soil and prevent erosion—a crucial issue in southern Louisiana, where man-made levees, hurricanes and oil industry canals and pipelines have combined to decimate 2,000 square miles of coastal wetlands.
“Down here, we’re (at a) low elevation, and we need as much built up as we can,” LaGraize said. “If you wanted a house 150 years ago, you built it yourself with the trees on your property. Maybe we should go back to that self-sustaining world.”
Source: Curbed New Orleans - All
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