'Our hemp crop raised eyebrows, but it is legal'

A farm in Worcestershire has been "raising eyebrows" among local villagers after it planted 30 hectares of hemp.

The plant, a variety of the cannabis sativa plant, is something farmers need a licence to grow in the UK.

Jake Freestone, from Overbury Enterprises, on Bredon Hill, is one among 130 licensees who can legally cultivate the crop, which is used for clothes, rope, paper, sound proofing cars, and even for strengthening cement.

"It looks very much like what it shouldn't be, but it's grown for its fibres, so the actual drug element has been bred out of these varieties," the farm manager said. "There's absolutely no special effects here, whatsoever."

And despite its suspicious appearance, Freestone said the crop was giving his farm "resilience going forward" against a changing climate.

"We are living in a changing climate, so the crops we have historically grown might not be as suitable going forward in dryer, hotter climates, and also in wetter climates as well.

"This is a crop we can plant slightly later in the spring and it's very drought tolerant. It likes the heat and it's probably about seven feet tall in places."

There are also environmental benefits to the crop, in that it adds valuable carbon to the soil.

"It also captures an awful lot of carbon from the atmosphere, it locks that up in the stems of the plant which is the bit that's processed," Freestone explained.

"It also puts a lot of that carbon into the soils so by using direct drilling for the following crop, that carbon can be locked away, giving us a lower carbon footprint.

"It also needs very little fertiliser, no pesticides, and this is the first year we've grown it and it looks really quite pleasing.

"It has certainly raised some eyebrows, but hopefully we'll make some money out of it at the end of the day."

Freestone's farm also does not require irrigation and is totally dependent on the weather.

"We've had probably about 100ml of rain from the beginning of March until now. In a normal year that would probably be somewhere in the region of 250ml.

"So actually, having a crop like this that can survive these high temperatures, droughty conditions, gives us a bit of resilience going forward."

He added: "If you go up the hill and look down these are about the only three green fields as far as the eye can see."

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