French hemp is planned to be used to produce hemp fabrics for the whole of Europe

Following the trends of the modern market, when a consumer in the EU wants to wear “green” textiles with therapeutic qualities, it was decided to manufacture special agricultural equipment for mowing and further harvesting of long hemp fibers.

On the pages of the specialized electronic edition of national cannabis growers, the attention of our dear readers and listeners has been more than once focused on the fact that not only China, Canada and the United States have recently paid close attention to the development of such a sector of modern cannabis growing as hemp fiber processing. What is interesting in the following story is how French agricultural producers are responding to the increasingly defining trends of EU consumers who want not only to use food with therapeutic properties, but also to wear green textiles that have health / healing properties.

At the end of August 2021, in Calvados (a department in the north-west of the country), a prototype of special equipment created by EU specialists was tested for mowing and preparing long hemp fiber for its further processing. On August 20, a prototype of a Belgian self-propelled mower removed the hemp stalk from the field (mowed a two-meter plant at the foot and cut it in half to split it into two parallel one-meter swaths ready for steeping). According to the plan of the technologists, turning and then rolling into bales using traditional agricultural machines designed to work with the stem, hemp raw materials should be able to be processed at the primary processing plant (banged) in a month.

According to French agricultural producers, the need to create this kind of equipment is due to the need to increase the profitability of the cultivation of industrial crops of industrial hemp. Until recently, the hemp plant in France was mainly grown for the purpose of obtaining grain (used in the food industry or in the pet business) or for obtaining short fiber (used for the manufacture of stationery, harnesses, insulation, mulching, or as a basis for various types of eco-materials ), but there was no equipment for harvesting long hemp fibers. Specifically, in order to ensure the parallelism of the cut straw, as well as the standard fiber length, reaching about one meter, special equipment was ordered from Belgium. Following the trends of the modern market, when a consumer in the EU wants to wear “green” textiles with therapeutic qualities, it was decided to manufacture special agricultural equipment designed specifically for mowing and later harvesting long hemp fibers.

Experiments to obtain hemp raw materials used to recreate the French textile hemp sector have been going on since 2017. The first harvests of long hemp fiber were converted into yarns and then presented to the brand “Le Gaulois”, from which the designers made textiles and knitwear for the EU market.

Commentary of the specialists of the Association "Ukrainian technical hemp"

In February 2020, organic hemp won the coup de cœur prize for achievements in bioeconomy at the Paris Agriculture Exhibition. Growing technical hemp for the purpose of obtaining not only grain, but also hemp fiber is much more profitable than growing even the most profitable crops. Therefore, the desire of French cannabis growers not only to satisfy the wishes of EU consumers in purchasing “green” textiles, but also to significantly increase the profitability of cultivating industrial crops of industrial hemp, similar to the trends observed on this issue in China, the USA, Canada, as well as a number of other economically developed countries of the world. 

Considering the fact that specialists of the profile association of national hemp growers over the past three years have actively participated in the creation of several production chains at once aimed at processing hemp fiber, as well as the fact that experiments are being actively carried out in the framework of the Hemp University to create textile and knitted fabrics. products made of therapeutic hemp fiber with significant medicinal properties, during the next training of the students of the Hemp University, it is planned to hold a specialized round table to discuss the situation on the hemp fiber market in our country, as well as determine the steps necessary for the development of this segment of modern hemp growing in Ukraine.