experimental aspect of Joe’ s license and hemp became a fully legal industrial crop in Canada. That was the start of the industrial hemp industry in Canada.
THC: That easy huh? I think we should send Obama an MDF hemp panel.
Seber: Unfortunately, after we had proven the potential of the MDF panels the Canadian government decided that because they were just starting they weren’ t in a position to produce the quantities that we needed for building materials and they focused on producing hemp seed and hemp seed oils for foods and cosmetics and that has been the bulk of the Canadian hemp industry until a couple of years ago.
THC: So this all took place in the early 90s and 20 years later the U. S. still doesn’ t have a home grown hemp industry, so what happened with your research? I mean there was so much potential there.
Seber: Shortly after that the political environment became so poisonous for a number of years that we stopped all hemp research. Then about eight or ten years ago I decided that I would check out what was going on with industrial hemp only to discover that the issue had actually gone backwards with the advocates and the hemp movement- everyone had become involved and enamored with medical marijuana and the knowledge and promotion of industrial hemp and its uses had faded away.
THC: Everyone says marijuana is sexier, but I think the use of hemp to build houses, feed people and save forests is pretty sexy too.
Seber: So do I. But one of the problems here is the traditional way that hemp is cultivated and processed and the cost incurred to do this. Traditionally hemp is grown and then its cut down or placed on the ground and retted *, where they allow nature to weaken the structure of the plant so they can extract the bast fiber * to make paper and textiles and other fibrous products. But this process isn’ t cost effective for the
building materials industry which is based on a model of high volume and low profit where they would produce millions of board feet at a time at a very low profit margin but because they produce so many it can work economically.
THC: So is it hopeless or is there another way to grow the hemp?
Seber: We needed to introduce a new, nontraditional way to cultivate, process and harvest the hemp to serve these other kinds of industries. So, to educate people, I produced a poster called 21st Century Industrial Hemp Composite and Energy Applications. What it says is that we need to grow the hemp very densely packed with no hemp particle board side branching to about 16-18 feet tall. Then chop it into little pieces 1 / 4 inch to 1 / 2 inch in length. Once we do that we could produce a whole spectra of building materials and energy products using that chopped materials as feed stock.
THC: But that hasn’ t happened at all in the U. S. and Canada has focused predominantly on seed and oil.
Seber: Right, so I’ ve been constantly looking for products that we can develop so that a farmer can start growing hemp on a realistic scale. Producing hemp for oil’ farmers would also be creating a fiber source for hemp fiber product makers to start using. Farmers and fabricators would not need to immediately organize the thousands or millions of acres needed economically replace wood fiber in the construction industry. In Europe, the availability of hemp fiber has started a wide verity of uses, like sound deadening panels in Mercedes-Benz cars.
THC: Is this where I say- and that’ s where Hemp Shield™ comes in?
Seber: Well, after searching for many years I met Steve Nisewander, a chemist who is recognized as a genius in the paint and coatings industry, and he agreed to work with me. At first I wanted to make paint but there was a technical reason why we couldn’ t do that and he said,‘ How bout a deck stain’? Now understanding why I got involved with hemp, because
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