Source: tbo.com
Bob Clayton poses for a photograph while standing in the entrance of his home in Tarpon Springs. Clayton used hemp as a building material and hopes to persuade the State of Florida to allow farmers to grow hemp. CHRIS URSO/STAFF
TARPON SPRINGS — Bob Clayton’s first encounter with hemp was at a health food store where the fibrous plant was sold in bottles as an ideal source of protein and omega acids.
At the time, he had no idea of the many uses for the tall cannabis plant, which Florida farmers are banned from growing due to its association with its psychoactive relative, marijuana.
The two happen to come from the same plant, but industrial hemp’s chemical makeup doesn’t produce a high.
What its fibrous stalks can produce is durable clothing, paper and even car dashboards.
Clayton, a retired engineer, also saw its potential as an Earth-friendly fiber for construction.
The walls of his three-bedroom, two-bathroom home near the Sponge Docks in Tarpon Springs are built of “hempcrete,” making his residence the first “hemp house” in Florida.
Now Clayton has been drafted to be an ambassador for the versatile crop, which state lawmakers are pushing to legalize for production as a new multimillion dollar industry for Florida farmers.
He already has made trips to Tallahassee this year and expects to make a few more to speak in favor of a bill to spur hemp farming, following the lead of dozens of states that have made similar moves in recent years.
“It’s only just happening. I mean, this is a revolution across America. We’re really creating a new industry,” Clayton said.
Actually, Clayton and other hemp advocates say they really are reviving an industry that fell out of favor in this country in the early 20th century.
For ages, the plant was used around the world to make ship sails, rope, paper, garments and building materials.
“We used it for clothing. We used it for our sails. We used it for the rigging of our ships. We would have never made it over from Europe without hemp. That’s what we used,” said Ingrid Setzer, who heads the Florida chapter of the Hemp Industries Association.
Cotton, petroleum and other products would drive out much of the old hemp market and its cultivation was outlawed decades ago in an effort to stamp out illegal marijuana production.
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The buds of the cannabis plant used in drugs are high in tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which gives marijuana its psychoactive properties.
Industrial hemp has only traces of THC and much of its value is in the hearty stalks, which can grow 12-feet high, eliminating harmful weeds with their shade and attracting few pests while requiring none of the pesticides used on products like cotton, Clayton says.
A bill working its way through committees in the Florida Legislature this spring would limit THC levels for hemp to .3 percent – in line with standards in Canada and other U.S. states – and require farmers to register with the state and pay a fee to cover the cost of testing their crops.
“Basically, what we’re trying to do is give our agriculture community another option to be able to grow a crop that can be used in a variety of products and has already found its way unto shelves in stores throughout Florida and let our farmers compete on a national and international level,” state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, said at an agriculture committee meeting last week.
Clemens is sponsoring a bill to legalize and regulate hemp farming, SB 902, which passed unanimously in the agriculture committee.
There’s a companion bill in the House.
“This is an industrial hemp bill. This has nothing to do with marijuana, medical marijuana in its psychoactive form,” said Clemens, who noted that he has proposed bills in the past favoring medical marijuana.
Clayton testified at that committee meeting about hemp’s many marketable uses, using his own home as an example.
The single-story residence is supported by wooden studs and built on a concrete slab, but its walls are composed of “hempcrete,” a mix of the hemp plant’s woody core and a lime-based binder.
The cement-like material is a fraction of the weight of conventional concrete and it also is much more breathable.
There’s no formaldehyde, latex or other potentially harmful chemicals in Clayton’s walls, either.
On the other hand, the walls tend to be spongey, meaning they won’t take well to prolonged soaking in water.
Being located in a flood zone, Clayton built his house on a raised concrete platform and added a 1-foot tall slab at the base of the home, so hopefully he never will find out what would happen in a deluge.
Controlling the humidity inside is also a challenge, even with a central dehumidifier, and working with lime plaster to finish off the interior walls was difficult and time-consuming, he says.
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On the whole, Clayton is happy with his energy-efficient, naturally-made home, but he admits that a local industry would have a long way to go before “hempcrete” and other uses of the plant could go mainstream.
Technology would enable manufacturing of hemp at a level unimaginable in the past, but it would take time to establish an infrastructure for mass-production.
“It’s not like oranges – you can box up oranges and sell them. Your fiber is meaningless if you can’t send it to a plant and process it. And processing is meaningless is people don’t buy your goods or clothing or whatever you’re going to make from it,” Clayton said.
“It’s not going to happen overnight.”
Hemp very quickly could be planted as a cover crop that goes between other crops to restrict the growth of weeds, says Setzer.
More than a dozen farmers in Manatee County alone have expressed interest in planting hemp among their other crops, she says.
“It’s sustainable because you can grow it right in your area. You don’t have to import it from some other country,” Setzer said, noting that most hemp found in local stores is imported from Canada.
Clayton began building his hemp house with a measure of healthy skepticism in 2012, especially because he was constructing what would be only the fourth such home in the United States — and in coastal Florida’s damp, untested climate.
He expects to find a few more flaws in his project over time, but he is fully convinced that hemp has a bright future in the Sunshine State.
Clayton is a little surprised at where his once casual interest in the plant as a health supplement has taken him.
“One thing leads to another,” he said.
jboatwright@tampatrib.com
(727) 215-1277
Twitter: @JBoatwrightTBO
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