How Hemp Can Save Fish, Reduce Water and Help Save Trees

by Gina-Marie Cheeseman
Source: justmeans.com

For many people who strive to live healthier lives, the message is clear: make sure you get enough Omega fatty acids in your diet. Many people like the convenience of supplements to get Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids. However, most Omega fatty acid supplements come from fish oil that is extracted from harvesting fish, which is wreaking havoc on certain fish populations.

It used to be that fish oil was a byproduct. The head, a tail and fish guts would be ground and pressed to release oil. The popularity of fish oil has caused species of Omega-rich fish to be harvested for the oil itself. One company wants people to adopt a plant-based Omega fatty acid supplement. The company is called Envision Naturals and they created a supplement made from hemp oil, which is rich in Omega fatty acids. The supplement is called Save the Fish Hemp Oil, and it is made from 100 percent organic Canadian hemp seed oil.

Envision Naturals launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise capital for and awareness of the Save the Fish Hemp Oil supplements. The campaign’s goal is to raise CDN$75,000. It runs until July 3, 2015. Most backers will be given at least one month’s supply of the supplements.

The environmental benefits of hemp

I talked to Chris Dollard, Co-founder of Envision Naturals, to find out more about the supplements. What I discovered is that hemp cultivation in Canada is light years ahead than it is in the U.S. Canada has had a hemp growing program for over 50 years. “Hemp farmers are pretty much non-existent in the U.S. because of prohibition back in the '30s,” Dollard said. “Most of hemp was lumped in with marijuana. The U.S. at the time had one of the richest seed stocks of industrial hemp in the world. The tragic loss there is that it's completely gone. There is nothing left of that. So, American farmers have to rebuild.”

Hemp has several environmental benefits. One of those is reduced water use. It takes about half of the water to grow hemp as it does to grow wheat, Dollard said. Hemp has “really long tap roots that are used to rejuvenate the soil,” he explained. Hemp also requires less water than cotton does. That could be very helpful for California farmers who are faced with a four-year drought, the worst one on record. California is the top cotton-producing state. As Dollard put it, “Cotton requires a huge amount of water to grow.” And California just doesn’t have much water right now. 

Hemp can also be used to make paper. It provides about three to four times the pulp for paper that trees do. If hemp replaces trees to make paper, the environmental benefits are numerous. Or as Dollard said, “If you substitute hemp at the baselines of all these different industries, you're replacing petroleum products big time. You're replacing trees because trees shouldn't be cut down and used to make toilet paper. We need the trees. Rather than use these natural resources or cotton, which require a huge amount of water, we can use hemp.”