>>> Part 4 of 4...
hemp plant, you get a fifteen-foot fiber and that's why we're doing the 
MDF for right now.
HT: If that's true, you could revolutionize an industry.
BC: And do it with the machinery that's already in place.
HT:  What's keeping you from producing these products right now?
BC: A couple of things.  First, you need money to do what we're doing, to
initiate this sort of project. We're establishing our reputation and our
abilities within the industry now, as well as educating people in the 
industry to the potential of hemp fiber.  Eventually somebody will come 
to us and say they want a particular product and we'll say okay, we will 
develop that product with a hemp-based composite for you.  And then we'll 
be in production.
HT:  Do you have anyone lined up yet?
BC:  Without getting into detail, there is one manufacturer in the state 
for whom we've prototyped three boards.  He is currently using in excess 
of six million board-feet of old-growth vertical-grain lumber a year and 
would like to be able to produce his product out of a hemp-based medium 
density fiberboard.  If the prototypes work - which we're sure they will 
- they will engage us, we will engage a manufacturer, we'll set the whole 
thing up.  We've accomplished the entire economic loop, except for one 
thing and that is the supply of the raw fiber.
HT:  Are enough countries already producing commercial hemp for import?
DS:  No.  Ultimately it will have to be grown here, but until then we're 
working with five countries to try and demonstrate the feasibility of 
using the hemp directly into the production line as soon as possible.
HT:  What about a commercial crop here in America?  How close are we to 
that?
DS:  We are very close.  We're working with some of the major economic and
political forces in the Northwest on the forest issue and we believe that 
within the next couple of years we will actually make it possible to 
legally grow.  And the universities we've been working with are behind us 
one hundred percent on this and we hope to get more of them involved, 
specifically with agricultural growing part of the program.
HT:  Assuming all goes according to your plans, how important could the
utilization of hemp fiber eventually be?
BC:  We're talking about a whole new wave of the Industrial Revolution.  
The thing is that we use certain raw materials in our life.  Aside from 
the foods that we eat, everything that we utilize in our lives - our 
clothing, our housing, our cars - is made from raw materials. And fiber 
is the largest single raw material utilized by the human race.  In the 
United States, the tonnage of fiber used from trees every year equals the 
total tonnage of all metal, plastic and cement we use. So, what we're 
talking about is not only sustainability, which they have not been able 
to achieve by cutting down the forest, but the potential for real, 
honest-to-God major growth.  Imaging making all these things that we want 
and actually sustaining the health of the ecosystem while we do it!
I'm talking about alternatives.  Once we make this move to hemp, the step
to solar energy and all the other technologies that are really clean and 
that we need to have happen, well, this is going to open the door for all 
of them.
Picture caption: Bill Conde (left) and David Seber (right) inspect a 
new shipment of hemp fiber.
End
For more details:
C&S Specialty Builders
23005 N. Coburg Road
Harrisburg, OR 97446
Tel. (800) 728-9488
Conde & Seber dissolved their partnership sometime after this
article was published. C&S Specialty Builders has gone back to
being Conde Redwood Lumber Co. at the same address. This
article is reprinted without permission from http://www.hightimes.com
_High Times (though we did send them a message about it). For
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