Returning to our roots

BY ART CULLEN

Up to 135 German Prisoners of War started trucking into Storm Lake on Aug. 1, 1945 at the close of World War II for what was to be a temporary satellite of the Algona POW Camp near the Iowa National Guard Armory. “We liked the new location at first sight. With its 5,500 inhabitants, Storm Lake is a very expansive little city. It makes an inviting picture, with its white sparkling clean garden houses in green, perfectly tended lawns—decorated with flowers and trees. South of the town lies the wide lake which gave the town its name. Nothing came of our immediate wish to go swimming, as we were told that the lake is too shallow and mucky—but at least we have the view of the sparkling lake in the charming landscape below the camp,” prisoner Erbo wrote in a journal.

The prisoners worked in vegetable fields cursing “cockleberries” and they staffed the canning factory that late summer.

They also helped bring in the hemp harvest.

Yes, hemp was a major part of the war effort and Storm Lake was an integral part of it. Major hemp processing operations to make rope for the Allied Forces were located in Algona and Eldora. Storm Lake was among 34 feeder operations in Iowa, South Dakota and Minnesota.

Hemp continues to grow wild in abundance in Iowa. “Ditch weed,” they call it. It is especially thick around here, as you might imagine.

Hemp does not get you high. But it is a cousin in the “cannabis” family to marijuana plants that do get you high.

That is not what the POWs were harvesting. They reaped the stuff that would give you a headache if you smoked it.

But it made good rope. And clothing (it produces twice as much fiber per-acre than cotton). Later, it was discovered that hemp could be used for building materials, composites for automobiles (BMW uses hemp extensively in its luxury cars), ethanol production (it has a higher feedstock value than corn, switchgrass, beets or sugar cane) and for certain medical purposes through its oil.

Hemp was made illegal after the war because of its association with marijuana. Every other industrialized nation from China to Canada allows hemp production.

It’s a silly confusion that prevents Iowa from taking advantage of what could be a wonder crop.

The 2014 Farm Bill made it legal for state universities and departments of agriculture to work with growers on research and commercial products. The provision was personally cultivated by now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, where hemp already was allowed for research for several years. Tobacco-state legislators want to introduce hemp as a replacement crop for hard-pressed growers. Since then, 26 states have legalized commercial hemp production, including every state around Iowa but for South Dakota.

Iowa should allow hemp production to resume for many good reasons. For starters, its prohibition began out of fears of drug abuse. Those fears are unfounded — hemp is not marijuana.

In fact, hemp may have compounds that relieve epilepsy. Some of its health benefits may be oversold. Not enough research has been done to know. It is a healthy food source whose seeds are high in protein.

Certainly, hemp has huge commercial opportunity and agronomic benefits that Iowa should recognize.

We are on the verge of a renewable energy revolution. Iowa is at the very lead in forming a new concept of biorefineries that could put a new view on the landscape. Research into corn fractioning has led to all sorts of new products that replace petroleum-based plastics. All that Iowa State University research can be quickly applied to hemp, if only it is allowed.

Hemp has widely acknowledged agronomic benefits. Our corn-soy rotation planted into a petrochemical base is not sustainable in the long term. Litigation over surface water pollution, massive soil erosion and the growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico demands that we work the land in better ways. Hemp can be used as a cover crop with real value, as farmers in Kentucky already are demonstrating. They can make the same money from 100 acres of hemp that they could on 300 acres of corn. Hemp flourishes on flat-topped coal reclamation sites. It flourishes in Iowa, too — despite years of eradication efforts, ditch weed remains a fixture.

It sucks up water from fields that otherwise would go to drainage tiles. It requires no fertilizer. Its root system builds tilth and inhibits weed growth with a low-canopy cover.

Iowa also has passed an extremely restrictive medical cannabis law that allows a form of the plant that produces no psychoactive ingredients to be used to treat epilepsy patients. The problem is that the extract — called CBD oil — cannot be produced or purchased in Iowa. It cannot be researched in Iowa, either. Families remain in suffering, or they move to Colorado.

A couple bills are floating in the Senate and House, sponsored mainly by Democrats, that would allow commercial hemp production in Iowa. The American Farm Bureau supported the Farm Bill provision allowing hemp. One would think this is an area where Democrats and rural Republicans could find common cause. We could introduce a crop that provides clear agronomic benefits, improved water quality and is an established ethanol feedstock with real value as an alternative to corn and soybeans. And, it could provide a way around Iowa’s reefer-madness restrictions on medical cannabis therapies and research. Gov. Terry Branstad should be able to leave his veto pen in its holster if the Farm Bureau approves. Hemp was proven in Storm Lake during the Great War. Let’s give it a chance to succeed for Iowa farmers again.