Not surprisingly, it seems that the hemp industry will suffer from the recession. Coming out of the Hemp Industries Association annual conference, economists have predicted a slight drop for the month of September. As the Boston Herald reports:

The Hemp Industries Association continues its 15th annual convention at Boston’s Best Western Roundhouse Suites. The group is sharing data about expanding markets and mapping out plans to bring back hemp farming.

The Conference Board releases its index of leading indicators for September, and economists expect a drop of 0.1 percent.

Now, granted, a 0.1% drop seems negligible, but you have to keep two things in mind:

1. 1) Industrial sectors are supposed to yield perpetual growth rates to be successful. This is a fundamental tenet of a growth economy. In fact, a business or sector has to grow at least at the same rate of inflation (another fundamental tenet of a growth economy) just to be stagnant.
2. 2) The recession hasn’t even really begun to penetrate all sectors.

Given that the hemp sector is already anticipating a drop (albeit minute), things aren’t looking that great. Overall, the recession isn’t going to be good for most sectors, but my guess is that the hemp sector will suffer more than other consumer product sectors. After all, hemp products are still mostly a luxury or niche good, and their pricing isn’t that competitive with non-hemp counterparts because the technology necessary to process hemp has developed at an equal rate (due to legislative disincentives). Most hemp products sold, then, will likely be either (a) consumed by die-hard hempsters, or (b) as non-recurring splurge buys.

Part of the irony of all this, however, is that the type of economy (i.e. a sustainable one) that would include energy efficient and eco-friendly products such as those made from hemp, would pretty much preclude the kind of economic crisis currently underway. Not to say that hemp would solve all our economic problems, but rather that the kind of economic mindset that it takes to seriously invest in hemp technologies is largely conterminous with the kind of mindset that eschews the pitfalls of a growth economy.

An opinion piece on OpEd News points to an interesting paper by Lynn Osburn. Appearing to have been written in 1990, Toward a Green Economy outlines some of major environmental dilemmas caused by our economy, and then explores how industrial hemp might be able to solve them. Here’s an excerpt on how using industrial hemp for paper production can save forests:

About seventy-five years ago two dedicated USDA scientists projected that at the rate the U.S. was using paper we would deplete the forests in our lifetimes. [...] So USDA scientists Dewey and Merrill looked for an alternate agricultural resource for paper products to prevent the disaster we now face.

They found the ideal candidate to be the waste material left in the fields after the hemp harvest. The left over pulp, called hemp hurds, was traditionally burned in the fields when the hemp fiber had been removed after the time consuming retting (partially rotting the hemp stalk to separate the fiber from the hurds) process was completed.

Hemp hurds are richer in cellulose and contain less lignin than wood pulp. Dewey and Merrill found after much experimentation that harsh sulfur acids used to break down the lignin in wood pulp were not necessary when making paper from hemp hurds. Sulfur acid wastes from paper mills are known to be a major source of waterway pollution. The coarse paper they made from hemp hurds was stronger and had greater folding durability than course wood pulp paper. Hemp hurd paper would make better cardboard and paper bag products than wood paper. They found the fine print quality hemp hurd paper to be equal to writing quality wood pulp paper. [ Dewey and Merrill, Bulletin #404, Hemp Hurds As Paper-Making Material, U.S.D.A., Washington, D.C., October 14, 1916.]

The only problem to implementing the paper industry resource change from wood to hemp hurds was machinery to separate hemp fiber from the hurds needed to be developed. Separation was still done by hand after the machine breaks had softened the hemp stalks.

The paper seems focused on how forests need to be protected because emissions aren’t going to go away. Of course, hemp has quite a few uses that can help us cut down on emissions, such as biofuel and replacing a slew of other synthetic products that cause emission when manufactured. Mind you, Toward a Green Economy was written nearly two decades ago, so many of the advances in hemp processing that we have today had not yet been made.