Can hemp really stop Mother Nature from going to pot?
If you're the sort of person who scours the 'Birthdays' section in the Guardian (it's a big ask, I know) you may have noticed that John Hanson, 'hemp ecologist', turned 75 today.
Mr Hanson doesn't want to take Britain back to the Stone Age - just to the 1st Century BC, when paper was made from fine old (low-carbon) English crops like hemp rather than imported wood pulp.
Why? Because hemp farms don't abuse Mo' Nature as much as tree plantations, says . 'In both the growing and processing of the crop', he notes, 'substantially less land, machinery, energy inputs and capital are required than ... wood-pulp processes.'
Naturally, . Hemp's nowhere near as green as eucalyptus, according to research by the Instituto Superior Técnico in Portugal. Why? Because it's an '' plant that needs to be grown from scratch, year in, year out, requiring fertilisers and tractors galore.
Follow up:
Follow up: Grow your own ... fruit
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