• Do you know a plant that can feed us, heal us, clothe us, build sustainable houses, make paper, cosmetics, fuel or composite materials?
Do not look any further, there is only one, it is Hemp.
• Do you know a plant that can grow up to 4 meters in 4 months, that doesn't need any inputs, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, no irrigation, that doesn't have any predators, that cleans the soil and absorbs more than 15 tons of CO2 per hectare?
Do not look any further, there is only one, it is Hemp.
• Do you know a plant that has accompanied the history of humanity for 9000 years, in its most beautiful achievements and without being linked to pollution, slavery, the drying up of fresh water reserves or other calamities?
Do not look any further, there is only one, it is Hemp.
• Do you know of a fabric that is comfortable, soft, hypoallergenic, antibacterial, antifungal, UV resistant, and has a hollow, breathable fiber that allows it to breathe, giving it unique thermoregulation?
Look no further, only hemp fabric has all these qualities.
A little history...
We must give credit to Caesar - or rather to the emperor of China - for what he deserves. It was the Chinese who discovered hemp nearly 9000 years ago. It has become one of the mother plants of Chinese medicine and its ideogram is pronounced Ma.
During the millennia that followed, hemp spread on all continents and all civilizations developed its use in many fields. It is estimated that it is during the 3rd millennium before our era that the textile use developed.
Throughout our history, hemp has been considered as the queen of plants, generator of progress, praised in Europe as well as in America and Asia. In Japan, hemp was a sacred plant in the Shinto religion and the emperor's clothes were made of hemp.
The human achievements based on hemp are innumerable, the first printed book, the master paintings of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and many others, flags, sails and ropes of long-distance ships (30 to 60 tons of hemp were necessary to equip a ship that had to cross the oceans), the declaration of independence and the constitution of the United States. The first denim jeans were made of hemp.
Henri Ford, the genius of the automobile, invented the first car built with composite materials based on hemp, whose fuel was hemp ethanol.France was a very large producer of hemp, and Marseille was one of the most important hemp markets in the world, with its Canebière. In 1900, France had 170 000 hectares of hemp planted in many regions. After having almost disappeared, hemp reappeared and we have today in France 18000 hectares of hemp, ten times less...
The conspiracy...
But then, why this plant which has been used in all regions of the world for thousands of years, which has marked the history of civilizations, has suddenly disappeared from our daily life and even from our collective memory? This is a story worthy of a detective novel or how the alliance of powerful industrial lobbies leads to the prohibition of one of the most virtuous plants. In the 1930s, all the enemies of hemp joined forces to try to prohibit it: the chemical industries that wanted to impose synthetic textiles and agricultural chemicals, the manufacturers of paper made from wood cellulose, the oil companies and the cotton industry. Under the impulse of William Hearst, press magnate and great propagator of fake news, hemp will be systematically denigrated. While Hearst had a great political influence, he succeeded in having a law passed in 1937 taxing heavily all the actors of the hemp industry, despite the opposition of the American medical association. This law led to the collapse of hemp production. The prohibition of hemp quickly took effect and the plant was removed from the American pharmacopoeia.
The revenge of history
But the very people who had banned hemp found themselves at a loss when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in December 1941, because they were not ready for war. In a hurry, they encouraged farmers to replant hemp to clothe their soldiers and arm their warships. They broadcast a publicity film that can easily be found on the internet Hemp for victory.But once the victory was achieved in 1945, the same sad sires went back to attack hemp in the name of the industrial lobbies, forbidding Japan to use hemp and extending this prohibition in the whole Western world. Hemp was then forgotten for almost 70 years, it was the era of plastic, synthetic and chemical products.
The rebirth
But since a few years, the ecological conscience helping, hemp is reborn and many rediscover its benefits and the multitude of possible applications, whether for medicine, textile, food, construction, paper, cosmetics, etc... Hemp fascinates all the people who work on its applications, because they realize that it is a real gift that Nature has given us. There is still a long way to go before it finds the place it deserves, but obscurantism and lobbies will not succeed in making it disappear. On the contrary, it could be a real phoenix, because it brings new solutions to the agricultural, industrial and climatic challenges we have to face today.
Couleur Chanvre, pioneer of the hemp textile
We have been working with hemp for more than 16 years and are proud to be a pioneer of its textile renaissance in France. Hemp is our first field of excellence and for us it is a living fiber that infuses its exceptional qualities for the well-being and health of all those who wear it or snuggle in it.
