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iirc a large reason is that trees for paper & lumber can be grown in areas less suitable for agriculture, whilst hemp competes with foodstuffs. Hence, despite the hemp being a more efficient producer of cellulose, it may be less economically efficient due to the relatively high value of alternate uses for the same land.
That's largely what you see in China. Northern forests for paper, some hemp in the ag areas but mostly food. Finland and Sweden are major paper producers but they couldn't grow hemp if they wanted. And Brazil grows eucalyptus in marginal soils(acidic post pasture that cant even support cattle grazing anymore, none the less hemp and what annual tillage would do for the erosion of already shitty soil) very quickly to produce a massive amount of paper(with it's own ecological problems). None of these have anything to do with US drug laws or monopolies.
4 acres of trees over what period? Managed "forest" has a cycle of what 20 years from clear cutting to harvesting again?
What kind of fertilizer load does it need?
Does it need irrigation?
Monocultures are generally bad, whether it is of trees or hemp, but better solutions for our problems is good too!
Hemp rarely needs fertilizer or irrigation. Irrigation requirements are going to depend on where you grow it but it's right near the bottom of the list in terms of requirements
Yeah I heard that hemp grows like a weed but I've also heard marijuana farming is causing water shortages so I dunno
Marijuana and hemp are very different in that way. Marijuana cultivation is often done indoors so pests and things are tightly controlled, and the plants may be grown hydroponically and have to be very productive at growing tightly bunched and sensitive flowers. For hemp, long stringy plants with lots of fiber that grow fast and are much less sensitive, and things like the cleanliness and potential for mold contamination etc doesn’t really matter much. I don’t have any specific stats or anything but I can definitely see how marijuana may use a lot more water.
Hemp cultivation and marijuana cultivation are two very different beasts.
Typical weed shit you know?
You usually don't cut down all the trees in your forest all at once to make paper. At least this is not how it's done in Europe and it is illegal to do that. Trees are selected in the forest either for paper or for lumber. Young trees are usually used for paper and to make space for older trees to keep growing until they can be use for lumber, planks and such.
Canada likes to play a little looser with the rules. I've seen how they re-forest by just planting millions of black spruce
Hmmm... I'm by no mean an expert on the matter, but I see how this would have a big negative environmental impact.
That’s very enlightened but no they plant and harvest whole forests for paper.
That raises the question: it is better to do sustainable foresting or hemp farming ?
No doubt that chopping down entire forest is terrible and for sure it's being done, Amazonian rain-forest comes to mind. I hope this stops.
Another interesting fact I've learned from my short time working in the paper industry: biggest growing demands are for 1. Toilet paper, 2. Packaging, while demand for printing paper is steadily decreasing.
Then why does it cost so much more? It’s like vegan food, you’re not gonna convert people by gouging them
Economics as scale, industrial processes are geared to use it
Hemp has been federally legalized for 7 years now, but the only industry I ever hear about is CBD and extracted THC. Where are all the hemp farmers growing crops for textiles, rope and paper?
I imagine the people who own the land (ie. farmers) don't have an interest in it because there isn't an established industry to process it into products like cloth or rope or paper. This means they would have to buy the equipment not only to harvest / plant but also to process into usable material. If there was a pulp factory that would buy it from them they might plant it, but I doubt that any existing pulp factory would buy it as they would probably have to modify their production process slightly to make it into paper. Essentially it's the chicken and the egg problem of farmers don't have a market to sell it to, and factories can't buy enough to justify converting the production process to use the new material.
How could 1 acre of hemp produce the same quantity of wood pulp for making paper as 4 acres of trees? Spacing? Time taken between harvest?
I’m not a paper scientist, but i’m gonna guess many more plants, many times, much faster.
Higher ratio of green (read: photosynthesizing) to not green plant material, allowing faster growth
No need to oppose it if people are too scared / poor to try it. I also imagine there are better crops than hemp for paper. Lignocellulose (the type of plant matter used to make paper) typically makes up about the vast majority of the total dry matter in most plants. There are probably many other plants that produce the raw material more efficiently on a land and water basis with much less risk of getting outlawed.
I would bet that the processing is actually the much tougher problem to deal with than the growing of the plants as machinery is in general more expensive than plants and land.
It might even be cheaper to produce less plant matter on more lower quality ground than to use less land that is more ideal for growing. But I suspect it is just complacency on the part of the growers and / or paper pulp processors.
What are the long term ecological effects?
It could be hogging resources from the soil to grow so fast and take longer to recover.
A quick search says
Hemp farming generally has a lower ecological impact compared to timber farming, as it requires fewer pesticides, grows quickly, and can restore soil health. In contrast, timber farming often leads to deforestation, habitat loss, and a longer growth cycle, which can negatively affect biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
We are in the age of shit resources though, so if that’s not right, someone jump in.
And are those trees also being used for lumber, or just paper?
I would assume just paper,
They are also burned as fuel to process the wood into paper. It is cheaper for them to burn the wood for fuel / energy than to buy the electricity usually.
It is estimated that for every ton of hemp grown, 1.63 tons of carbon dioxide are removed from the Earth’s atmosphere — much greater than trees or similar sized plants7
https://stroudcenter.org/news/hemp-fiber-soil-health-and-water-quality/
The article goes into it more, but the consensus is that it is good for the soil, the air, and as a result of being a very hardy plant requires less pesticides (if any) to protect them from would-be predators (so it's good for clean water too).
Large companies that have spent millions on the equipment and expertise to “process” trees, plus lobbying and bribes, could oppose it. Buying all new equipment for hemp and learning all over again would cost them millions more.
If they’re in this business to begin with, clearly environmental concerns aren’t a major issue. All that matters is the bottom line.
However, the use of hemp in paper-making dwindled due to the prohibition of cultivating hemp in the 1930s. This prohibition was because hemp comes from the same species as marijuana. However, hemp is a different strain and doesn't have THC - the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis Sativa.
The 1937 Marihuana Tax Act made the cultivation of hemp and cannabis illegal. Not only that, the textiles and newspaper industry used their lobbying power to end the cultivation and production of hemp.
I've never written on hemp paper, I wonder what the differences are? Do different binders work better or worse with hemp? Is the bleaching process more or less intense? I'm coming at this more just curious about art papers that usually have high cotton content and how hemp would change them
https://www.trvst.world/sustainable-living/hemp/hemp-paper/
Hemp is a material famous for its versatility in many countries. Industries use it to produce clothes, paper, and textiles. Hemp contains a higher percentage of cellulose, making it suitable for paper production. Also, extracting its fiber requires fewer chemicals than traditional paper.
Even though hemp is a more suitable material for paper production, today, over 90% of the world's paper comes from wood. This still doesn't nullify the uses of hemp paper in some sectors. Below are more example uses: (see link)
Nobody has a global monopoly on paper. That's enough to prove this isn't quite accurate. Hell Ancient China originated both paper and hemp and they still use trees(though they did use hemp for a time).
Edit: I'm not going to respond individually to the comments below other then to say the leftist version of American Exceptionalism is on full display.
A global lobbyist group certainly would be interesting. In the US, these are some of the biggest companies with lots of pine trees and not a lot of hemp on their asset list.
Georgia-Pacific (owned by Koch Industries):
Pulp and paper products: around 10-15% market share in North America
Tissue and paper products: around 20-25% market share in North America
International Paper:
Pulp and paper products: around 20-25% market share in North America
Packaging paper: around 30-40% market share in North America
Weyerhaeuser:
Pulp and paper products: around 10-15% market share in North America
Packaging paper: around 15-20% market share in North America
I'm aware of American market consolidation. None of that explains why hemp paper isn't a global industry supposedly due to monopolists if it was four times as efficient. America is just one player in this commodity. The worlds largest paper maker, China, doesn't particularly care about American industry lobbists. I think the economic differences between irrigated hemp farming and tree farming and logging are likely much more salient.
China, doesn’t particularly care about American industry lobbists
They do have some reach, Tesla is popular here because of tons of lobbying by Musk, though thats changing.
Most of the worlds hemp production, including for paper, is located in China, I dont know anything about the history or economics.
Market consolidation doesn’t explain why new materials and processes aren’t being invested in? I don’t know how it works in China, but in the US that’s a very plausible explanation. At least it’s one.
I think the pure white copy paper and other paper products that are “touched” more are also a reason. But for cardboard packaging and a lot of other uses it’s probably perfectly valid.
Hemp is said to need less water than cotton, which us said to need less than trees (there wasn’t a handy direct link) but there are many variables to consider.
Market consolidation doesn’t explain why new materials and processes aren’t being invested in?
Why wouldn't it? Companies that have invested millions in land and equipment to harvest trees aren't going to just stop using their equipment and get new equipment / land for a different material on a whim. If it makes them money they'll keep doing it. No reason to take a potential Billion dollar risk on changing equipment and production processes. Sunk cost fallacy is a real barrier for a big company with millions in assets. They probably won't change unless they have a competitor producing goods cheaper or a government regulation / tax prompting them too. Changing production practices has a cost that most public companies are too cheap to pay for. They would rather use the money for stock buybacks, exec compensation, and investor dividends.
The market ain't perfectly efficient, companies don't care about efficiency if they are making money hand over fist. I imagine it is being done somewhere but it is just on a much smaller scale. If they grow enough they will get offers from big companies to buy them as that is cheaper than actually competing. For hemp there is also the risk that if you get too big they ~~bribe~~ lobby for making it illegal to put you out of business.
I think people underestimate the laziness/complacency of most people / companies, if it works why change it? Any employee has a better chance of being fired for trying to innovate than actually getting rewarded / promoted. Heck I imagine an executive could theoretically also get canned for trying to change the production process if they fail, though I imagine they would just pin it on a middle manager.
I mean, that was kind of my point, but. Yeah. What that guy said.
The laws in the US that outlawed cannabis in the 1930s were heavily pushed by Henry Anslinger who was doing the work of newspaper and lumber mogul William Randolph Hearst. One of the wealthiest men in the country at the time.
It lead to 80+ years of senseless prohibition that included industrial hemp products with only trace THC (you'd die of smoke inhalation before getting a meaningful high).
So wood might not have had a monopoly, but hemp was legitimate competition that was intentionally boxed out for nearly 100 years. That's quite the head start.
And not just paper. Automobiles almost ran on hemp oil.