TWO WAYS TO KEEP FROM STARVING

Re: Will The Biofuels Craze Cause Mass Starvation? April 12.

Oh boo friggin hoo! Where we gonna get fuel and food? Oh, Woe is us!"
Hemp you stupid puny earthlings . Hemp!

Hemp produces more ethanol per acre than corn, and does so at a lower
cost and with less damage to the soil. Also, one acre of hemp can
produce up to 1,000 gallons of Methanol in just four months. In
warmer climates, like the southern U.S., that could mean 3,000
gallons per acre, per year. If the U.S. were to sow just 10% of its
current farmland as hemp, for example, it wouldn't need to buy any foreign oil.

What about food? The hemp tops go to food, and the stalks go for
fuel, fibre and building materials, so it is like growing two crops
in one field. Hemp will even grow on damaged, exhausted or marginal
soil, so we don't need to use our prime farmland to grow car fuel. We
could even reclaim thousands of acres of unused and abandoned land,
and create jobs.

Hemp doesn't need the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that other
crops need, which saves fuel and lowers soil runoff pollution. Hemp
fuel burns clean, which would lower air pollution and reduce
associated health and environmental issues. Hemp also refreshes the
soil, so putting it into rotation with other crops will actually heal
- -- not deplete -- the soil.

So why do we keep using corn for fuel when hemp is cheaper, better,
healthier and cleaner? Because governments don't want to "send the
wrong message to youth" about marijuana, and because if there were
small hemp methanol-producing facilities in every small town in North
America, Big Oil would lose its total control over the prices of everything.

Russell Barth,

Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder, Nepean, Ont.