Move Over Cotton, Say Hello To Hemp- The ‘Forbidden’ Crop That Is Taking The World By Storm
If it were allowed the cultivation of hemp could be the big boom small farmers have been needing for awhile now. If you really think about it, it really is an amazing idea.
Canada itself has been reaping the benefits of this plant for quite some time while here in the United States we’re not quite there. Obama has though made some progress on that by removing it from the controlled substance act back in 2014 as long as it was being used for agricultural research. As it turns out hemp is actually better than cotton anyway. Cotton is riddled with pesticides nowadays.
Cotton crops require a large amount of irrigation and has a devastating effect on the places it is grown. It literally takes about two thousand gallons of water to grow enough cotton to make one pair of blue jeans, how ridiculous is that? Consumption of water isn’t the only issue we have found with cotton they also are known for overly high pesticide use as well. Cotton agriculture has also been big in killing countless farm workers each year because of the very dangerous pesticide aldicarb. This pesticide is deemed extremely hazardous yes we are still able to use it on our crops?
One single drop of this pesticide on human skin is enough to kill an adult. This is the most popular pesticide used in producing cotton. Hemp, on the other hand, produces up to three times the amount of usable plant material per acre than cotton. It does not require much fertilizer or pesticides, it can also grow in a large variety of soils and conditions. The water needed for help cultivation is also less than half of what is required to grow cotton.
It should be clear that hemp is the better choice here, right?