Dr Lydia Smith CropTec 2024

CropTec 2024

At CropTec, our Project Lead, Dr Lydia Smith, delivered an outstanding talk on the opportunities for farmers in industrial hemp cultivation. She highlighted the economic and environmental benefits of growing hemp, including its potential to improve soil health, boost biodiversity, and contribute to carbon capture.

The Potential of Industrial Hemp for Farmers

A recent article published by Farmers Weekly has shed light on the many benefits of industrial hemp, including its ability to enhance soil health, mitigate extreme weather effects, and improve subsequent crop yields. The article emphasises the crop’s high-value natural fibre, which has strong domestic and export market potential. In particular, there is growing interest in hemp fibre for construction, insulation, and vehicle manufacturing—especially in motorsports, where combining natural fibres with carbon fibre can help reduce shattering.

However, for hemp to be commercially viable at scale, a market must exist for all parts of the plant after processing. The article highlights ongoing work within CHCx3 to develop the hemp value chain, bringing together researchers, plant breeders, growers, processors, and end users to unlock the full potential of this sustainable crop.

The Potential of Bio-Based Insulation Materials

A newly published review has categorised the climate mitigation potential of 174 bio-based insulation materials, revealing that most perform favourably compared to traditional glass wool insulation due to the carbon stored within plant-based materials.

However, the study also highlighted variability in the physical and environmental properties of bio-based insulations, with room for improvement in embodied energy and thermal conductivity. The research mapped 39 different bio-based materials, either in their raw form or combined with 40 different types of binders, including biopolymers. Among the materials studied, hemp and flax showed promising results, particularly when processed using lower-energy binders, outperforming glass wool in embodied energy values.

Zheng Lu, Michael Hauschild, Lisbeth M. Ottosen, Teklit Gebregiorgis Ambaye, Pierluigi Zerbino, Davide Aloini, Ana T. Lima. Climate mitigation potential of biobased insulation materials: A comprehensive review and categorization. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 470, 2024, 143356 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.143356