I was standing in a very tall dark barn
in in in the middle of nowhere freezing
it was and I was just I had a mask on
and I kind of a grainy taste in my mouth
and I looked down and I was shoveling my
hand and I was covered in plant bits and
crop dust and I looked over in the
shadows and I could see Joe and he was
covered in it and he was shoveling away
and he was all his beard and I looked at
him the dust was rising off and it was
like I was in one of my early MTV videos
but a bad one actually and I Talking
Heads lyric popped into my head how did
I get here
then I remembered I’ve got a farm that’s
why I’m standing here in my well he’s
covered in yuck in the middle of the
night in the middle of freezing winter
in the middle of nowhere in a farm I’m
not a farmer I live in the city what is
this stuff we shoveling and you know how
did I get here so I think it might have
been all part of my late life crisis
because I turned 60 and at the same time
my daughter had a daughter and that
really just stopped me in my tracks
obviously and made me think about where
I am now and what I’m gonna eventually
leave behind and what a mess we’re
living in and how pretty soon she she’d
find out that we’ve we’ve actually been
pretty bad we’re looking after our
planet and ourselves lately and you know
she’ll she’ll see that we’re polluting
the atmosphere of carbon infecting our
seas with millions of tonnes of plastic
we’re damaging our own culture with
chemicals we’re putting process and
toxic food into our bodies and and
she’d love those chips I sleep but you
know she shouldn’t and I really I think
you you’ve all in here probably heard it
all before I hope you’ve heard it all
before
but I felt right it was time for me to
act now and I knew I could be a better
citizen and less plastic no plastic shop
around responsibly and find some planet
friendly nappies for the little one or
whatever I realized I’m in a position
I’m in a privileged position that I can
be more proactive and I just wanted to
find out how and I looked around for
that and then a Canadian friend of mine
Fonda said I should check out a plant
and no it’s not that sort of plant that
gets you high but you’re warm with that
because it is a cousin but it’s a cousin
that I feel has got a big step toward
some at some answers for those questions
and and guess what until the 1930s it
was used countless ways for thousands of
years we built with it we used it for
medicine we were clothed in it William
Shakespeare wrote on it and about it
George Washington grew it Henry Ford
built and ran a car on it the ten dollar
bill from from 1914 actually depicted
farmers harvesting it so you know we
were completely and utterly connected to
it and in fact we used it until we
banned it and it’s called hemp and what
can happen do well what can it fix
well carbon one hectare of industrial
hemp can absorb 15 tons of carbon in a
hundred days of growing with plastic the
stem is is really super super strong
it’s got fiber and cellulose so will
will be an alternative as a
biodegradable oil-based plastic for the
soil the hemp doesn’t need pesticides or
chemicals it when he grows and it’s long
tap roots actually repair parts to soil
and food hemp seeds are really rich with
protein I’m sure you’ve seen them in
house stores and things and the flowers
and leaves have a growing list of
healthy benefits including CBD so one
plant can do all this you’re probably
thinking suspiciously maybe but you
I that’s what I thought a year and a
half ago I found out that public
Mechanics magazine said that it would
become the billion-dollar crop but that
was back in 1938 when the governments
were planning to banish it because of
its cannabis cousin
[Music]
murder
[Music]
see this important bill now before it is
too late
[Music]
I mean it’s hysterical now but
ironically paranoia swept across the
u.s. and it was banned really including
its it’s innocent kind of billion-dollar
look-alike cousin there was just all
banned well today things are thankfully
changing and it’s legal now to grow in a
number of countries around including
right here so I looked around search
around I found two thousand acres
roughly in the UK which is really tiny
in in agriculture terms there’s a little
pockets of it there’s five hundred acres
up in them I’ve been east your chair
which are being used for horse bedding
and then there’s another fifty eight
because these hampern Warriors are doing
for sort of farmers market products
forty acres up in near leads which is a
bed company which are manufacturing
these healthy natural mattresses but
hardly anything is really not even
enough to give the hemp price for the
farmers it doesn’t even exist really in
the UK so I looked in mainland Europe
and there’s a bit more there’s eighteen
thousand acres and it’s grown mainly for
the car industry
strangely enough and it turns out in
that industry they’ve been using hemp
and flax from nearly 15 years in car
door panels and so BMW and Mercedes have
hemp inside I mean who knew that it’s
definitely stronger and lighter than
their synthetic materials it’s probably
cheaper as well otherwise I wouldn’t use
it um but you know they haven’t shouted
about it I think because they feel their
customers would be freaked out by it you
know freaked out that their car is made
of straw and it’s cousins going to get
your high so and unfortunately that
stigma it still completely surrounds
hemp it’s choking it’s slowing its
progress out of its dark age and you
know whenever I mention it eyebrows
would be raised and we’re gonna be a
wink and things and I and even I had a
few friends who thought I was turning
into a drug lord so we’ve got to change
that stigma for all those reasons and I
think maybe the clue might be to bring
some of those hidden fibers from the
cars out into the open and in some way
so I met with a Tim there’s actually a
really rare natural fibers expert in the
okay and he showed me some bio
composites and how they work and you you
take the hemp fiber from outside the
plant and you turn it into a nonwoven
material and then you heat compress and
you’ve got you end up with a material
that’s as strong as fiberglass from a
plant it’s it’s really super strong so
it really dawned on me then why can’t we
apply that tech to to more visibly cool
products you know and then we can yell
about the virtues of it for replacing
unsustainable materials in a real cycle
of positive growing of cleaner
production and a natural end of life and
then you know adding to expanding health
and therapeutic credentials of the plant
it could all help reboot it and right
there I thought that’s what I should do
I’m gonna grow it I’m going to grow it
I’m gonna research and develop it and
work on it that way the way I would
research and develop a film and and
he’ll grow it because even just the very
act of growing those acres will pull
carbon out of the atmosphere will will
do good for the soil so just go on
that’s right and then I I don’t farm I
don’t know anything about farming I’d
never done it in my life but I kind of
spur myself on by thinking that I’ve
grown up in the film business where you
know it really is a part of your life to
learn something new going entering the
unknown is all part of it you know
whether it’s Chinese culture or learning
about King Arthur or you know when
you’re making movies it really is a part
of entering that space so I really went
on to thinking about what else where
else we can apply it and movies and
cameras so why don’t why are these
cameras why they cased in plastic or or
aluminium or carbon fiber they should be
cased in the hemp and and why with our
storage facilities for our sets why they
made a concrete when there is a thing
called hempcrete the French have
invented this hemp tree which is
wonderful too clever French and I’m
going to grow it anyway I decided so I
found a derelict farm in Cambridge here
and I got a license to grow from the
government after I’ve been checked out
by the police which
the I think hemp baron was too obvious
to be suspicious or something so I got
away with it but a few local farmers
they popped their heads over the fence
and they were they thought I was naive
and clueless and potty and they didn’t
actually say that out loud but I could
tell that’s what they were thinking and
then this how is he going to make a
living and it’s gonna be sustainable
which they did actually say it out loud
and and and I took note but they were
they were probably being kind by saying
I was naive but I want you to go forward
blindly I’ve done that before entered
the unknown when in my other life of
films and have had some success with
that where I’ve just could just gone for
it and so I’m going on a hunch and a
sprinkle of little naivety is was I
found good in the past but anyway
stubborn me I picked up the phone and I
ordered three hundred and fifty kilos of
hemp seed which was accidentally
delivered to my flat in Barbican but um
and it was kind of I was actually really
awkward with the neighbors but got
through that got past all that and then
just before the spring planting at the
farm I just I just found a bunch of
Cambridgeshire locals who really got it
and they joined in to help and thank
goodness for Mike and Katherine and
their organic farming experience they
were amazing and then about 20 miles up
the road is Cambridge University and I
met with the head of sustainability
leadership there dr. Cranston and she
invited me into a scary roomful of
professors and to tell what I was doing
and earth
dr. Ramage and dr. Shaw actually they
just all got it and and they asked us to
partner with their Center for natural
material innovation with the new farm
and so an interim is when we were
planting the seeds even came with a
drone and helped us film it and and the
teachers have drones now – I didn’t who
knew that and and together we approached
the brilliant professional camera
manufactures read digital and they said
we could use their technical engineers
to work with dr. Shaw at Cambridge and
develop this this hemp encased camera
which is fantastic so it really feels
like it was meant to because now we’re
making and researching and developing
and we’re growing
the crop grew despite the weeds and
everything it just grew and grew through
last summer and then it came to
September and it was time to harvest it
we didn’t do it like that but we did
harvest there and we had this processing
facility farmer Rodgers processing
facility brilliant machines and things
and and he separated the fiber from the
shave and I see that was the night when
I really got I got kind of completely
covered in it and that whole kind of
talking heads moment but that was you
know again got past there and needed now
to put the process plants to use and
first thing we did was we took some of
the stems and we crushed them into tiny
little particles for Tom’s innovative
non-carcinogenic breathable new
brilliant plaster which is to use in the
walls of a new progressive scent of a
sustainability the conduit and then we
took the woody shives from the center of
the plant and we mix those together with
a little bit of lime in a kind of hint
Creek wave we built these sustainable
wood cassettes so to use as a prefab
Paloma is a architects that Paloma and
their to build a prefab farmhouse on our
farm out of our hemp crop and according
to the Financial Times those hem Creek
walls are highly insulating they’re
resistant to pests and mold they have
good acoustics and they moderate
humidity and you know some really clever
folk even now they’re just wandering
around the Black Sea they’re building
hemp homes all around the Black Sea as
we speak so at the farm though I really
wanted to next apply that sort of auto
industry technology so we used thermal
compression technology to make these
strong corrugated panels and so the idea
was you have aluminium and you have
bitumen plastic and you’ve got
corrugated panels that you use all over
the place in sheds and barns and all
kinds of construction but we could use
them here
and look showing off now but while we’re
at it till it’s made us a go-kart seat
from our fibers why not use that in
stadiums around the world why are we
sitting in all based plastics that’s
gonna wind up in the sea so it seems to
me anyway that time is right for him
because recently the media have really
got a buzz about it the New York Times
this year they highlighted this
potential construction future then their
Style section a few days later told our
hempen CBD is gaining momentum in the
beauty market and in Bloomberg even
suggested that hemp may have a
billion-dollar future so maybe Popular
Mechanics magazine were right 80 years
earlier with a billion dollar crop
prediction and since that era it’s
really remained in the dark and it’s not
been researched or grown or studied and
you know we humans really disconnected
from it and I think that if stay
disconnected is a serious big waste you
know our future needs all the help it
can find and I think surely that
includes learning from our past and you
know my farm adventures I’ve really
learned that there’s so much that can be
done with this plant like because
there’s so many possibilities there’s
still so much to learn you know how did
I get here well I I still don’t quite
know but I do know that this is this is
now all in our hands it’s in your hands
so business grads entrepreneurs
open-minded folks you know I think hemp
needs your ideas and it needs your
success for it to earn its place back on
our farm lands and then it could become
that cash crop that a farmers so badly
need in this country and it’s certainly
a big step toward a a cleaner healthier earth force ought to live thank you
in in in the middle of nowhere freezing
it was and I was just I had a mask on
and I kind of a grainy taste in my mouth
and I looked down and I was shoveling my
hand and I was covered in plant bits and
crop dust and I looked over in the
shadows and I could see Joe and he was
covered in it and he was shoveling away
and he was all his beard and I looked at
him the dust was rising off and it was
like I was in one of my early MTV videos
but a bad one actually and I Talking
Heads lyric popped into my head how did
I get here
then I remembered I’ve got a farm that’s
why I’m standing here in my well he’s
covered in yuck in the middle of the
night in the middle of freezing winter
in the middle of nowhere in a farm I’m
not a farmer I live in the city what is
this stuff we shoveling and you know how
did I get here so I think it might have
been all part of my late life crisis
because I turned 60 and at the same time
my daughter had a daughter and that
really just stopped me in my tracks
obviously and made me think about where
I am now and what I’m gonna eventually
leave behind and what a mess we’re
living in and how pretty soon she she’d
find out that we’ve we’ve actually been
pretty bad we’re looking after our
planet and ourselves lately and you know
she’ll she’ll see that we’re polluting
the atmosphere of carbon infecting our
seas with millions of tonnes of plastic
we’re damaging our own culture with
chemicals we’re putting process and
toxic food into our bodies and and
she’d love those chips I sleep but you
know she shouldn’t and I really I think
you you’ve all in here probably heard it
all before I hope you’ve heard it all
before
but I felt right it was time for me to
act now and I knew I could be a better
citizen and less plastic no plastic shop
around responsibly and find some planet
friendly nappies for the little one or
whatever I realized I’m in a position
I’m in a privileged position that I can
be more proactive and I just wanted to
find out how and I looked around for
that and then a Canadian friend of mine
Fonda said I should check out a plant
and no it’s not that sort of plant that
gets you high but you’re warm with that
because it is a cousin but it’s a cousin
that I feel has got a big step toward
some at some answers for those questions
and and guess what until the 1930s it
was used countless ways for thousands of
years we built with it we used it for
medicine we were clothed in it William
Shakespeare wrote on it and about it
George Washington grew it Henry Ford
built and ran a car on it the ten dollar
bill from from 1914 actually depicted
farmers harvesting it so you know we
were completely and utterly connected to
it and in fact we used it until we
banned it and it’s called hemp and what
can happen do well what can it fix
well carbon one hectare of industrial
hemp can absorb 15 tons of carbon in a
hundred days of growing with plastic the
stem is is really super super strong
it’s got fiber and cellulose so will
will be an alternative as a
biodegradable oil-based plastic for the
soil the hemp doesn’t need pesticides or
chemicals it when he grows and it’s long
tap roots actually repair parts to soil
and food hemp seeds are really rich with
protein I’m sure you’ve seen them in
house stores and things and the flowers
and leaves have a growing list of
healthy benefits including CBD so one
plant can do all this you’re probably
thinking suspiciously maybe but you
I that’s what I thought a year and a
half ago I found out that public
Mechanics magazine said that it would
become the billion-dollar crop but that
was back in 1938 when the governments
were planning to banish it because of
its cannabis cousin
[Music]
murder
[Music]
see this important bill now before it is
too late
[Music]
I mean it’s hysterical now but
ironically paranoia swept across the
u.s. and it was banned really including
its it’s innocent kind of billion-dollar
look-alike cousin there was just all
banned well today things are thankfully
changing and it’s legal now to grow in a
number of countries around including
right here so I looked around search
around I found two thousand acres
roughly in the UK which is really tiny
in in agriculture terms there’s a little
pockets of it there’s five hundred acres
up in them I’ve been east your chair
which are being used for horse bedding
and then there’s another fifty eight
because these hampern Warriors are doing
for sort of farmers market products
forty acres up in near leads which is a
bed company which are manufacturing
these healthy natural mattresses but
hardly anything is really not even
enough to give the hemp price for the
farmers it doesn’t even exist really in
the UK so I looked in mainland Europe
and there’s a bit more there’s eighteen
thousand acres and it’s grown mainly for
the car industry
strangely enough and it turns out in
that industry they’ve been using hemp
and flax from nearly 15 years in car
door panels and so BMW and Mercedes have
hemp inside I mean who knew that it’s
definitely stronger and lighter than
their synthetic materials it’s probably
cheaper as well otherwise I wouldn’t use
it um but you know they haven’t shouted
about it I think because they feel their
customers would be freaked out by it you
know freaked out that their car is made
of straw and it’s cousins going to get
your high so and unfortunately that
stigma it still completely surrounds
hemp it’s choking it’s slowing its
progress out of its dark age and you
know whenever I mention it eyebrows
would be raised and we’re gonna be a
wink and things and I and even I had a
few friends who thought I was turning
into a drug lord so we’ve got to change
that stigma for all those reasons and I
think maybe the clue might be to bring
some of those hidden fibers from the
cars out into the open and in some way
so I met with a Tim there’s actually a
really rare natural fibers expert in the
okay and he showed me some bio
composites and how they work and you you
take the hemp fiber from outside the
plant and you turn it into a nonwoven
material and then you heat compress and
you’ve got you end up with a material
that’s as strong as fiberglass from a
plant it’s it’s really super strong so
it really dawned on me then why can’t we
apply that tech to to more visibly cool
products you know and then we can yell
about the virtues of it for replacing
unsustainable materials in a real cycle
of positive growing of cleaner
production and a natural end of life and
then you know adding to expanding health
and therapeutic credentials of the plant
it could all help reboot it and right
there I thought that’s what I should do
I’m gonna grow it I’m going to grow it
I’m gonna research and develop it and
work on it that way the way I would
research and develop a film and and
he’ll grow it because even just the very
act of growing those acres will pull
carbon out of the atmosphere will will
do good for the soil so just go on
that’s right and then I I don’t farm I
don’t know anything about farming I’d
never done it in my life but I kind of
spur myself on by thinking that I’ve
grown up in the film business where you
know it really is a part of your life to
learn something new going entering the
unknown is all part of it you know
whether it’s Chinese culture or learning
about King Arthur or you know when
you’re making movies it really is a part
of entering that space so I really went
on to thinking about what else where
else we can apply it and movies and
cameras so why don’t why are these
cameras why they cased in plastic or or
aluminium or carbon fiber they should be
cased in the hemp and and why with our
storage facilities for our sets why they
made a concrete when there is a thing
called hempcrete the French have
invented this hemp tree which is
wonderful too clever French and I’m
going to grow it anyway I decided so I
found a derelict farm in Cambridge here
and I got a license to grow from the
government after I’ve been checked out
by the police which
the I think hemp baron was too obvious
to be suspicious or something so I got
away with it but a few local farmers
they popped their heads over the fence
and they were they thought I was naive
and clueless and potty and they didn’t
actually say that out loud but I could
tell that’s what they were thinking and
then this how is he going to make a
living and it’s gonna be sustainable
which they did actually say it out loud
and and and I took note but they were
they were probably being kind by saying
I was naive but I want you to go forward
blindly I’ve done that before entered
the unknown when in my other life of
films and have had some success with
that where I’ve just could just gone for
it and so I’m going on a hunch and a
sprinkle of little naivety is was I
found good in the past but anyway
stubborn me I picked up the phone and I
ordered three hundred and fifty kilos of
hemp seed which was accidentally
delivered to my flat in Barbican but um
and it was kind of I was actually really
awkward with the neighbors but got
through that got past all that and then
just before the spring planting at the
farm I just I just found a bunch of
Cambridgeshire locals who really got it
and they joined in to help and thank
goodness for Mike and Katherine and
their organic farming experience they
were amazing and then about 20 miles up
the road is Cambridge University and I
met with the head of sustainability
leadership there dr. Cranston and she
invited me into a scary roomful of
professors and to tell what I was doing
and earth
dr. Ramage and dr. Shaw actually they
just all got it and and they asked us to
partner with their Center for natural
material innovation with the new farm
and so an interim is when we were
planting the seeds even came with a
drone and helped us film it and and the
teachers have drones now – I didn’t who
knew that and and together we approached
the brilliant professional camera
manufactures read digital and they said
we could use their technical engineers
to work with dr. Shaw at Cambridge and
develop this this hemp encased camera
which is fantastic so it really feels
like it was meant to because now we’re
making and researching and developing
and we’re growing
the crop grew despite the weeds and
everything it just grew and grew through
last summer and then it came to
September and it was time to harvest it
we didn’t do it like that but we did
harvest there and we had this processing
facility farmer Rodgers processing
facility brilliant machines and things
and and he separated the fiber from the
shave and I see that was the night when
I really got I got kind of completely
covered in it and that whole kind of
talking heads moment but that was you
know again got past there and needed now
to put the process plants to use and
first thing we did was we took some of
the stems and we crushed them into tiny
little particles for Tom’s innovative
non-carcinogenic breathable new
brilliant plaster which is to use in the
walls of a new progressive scent of a
sustainability the conduit and then we
took the woody shives from the center of
the plant and we mix those together with
a little bit of lime in a kind of hint
Creek wave we built these sustainable
wood cassettes so to use as a prefab
Paloma is a architects that Paloma and
their to build a prefab farmhouse on our
farm out of our hemp crop and according
to the Financial Times those hem Creek
walls are highly insulating they’re
resistant to pests and mold they have
good acoustics and they moderate
humidity and you know some really clever
folk even now they’re just wandering
around the Black Sea they’re building
hemp homes all around the Black Sea as
we speak so at the farm though I really
wanted to next apply that sort of auto
industry technology so we used thermal
compression technology to make these
strong corrugated panels and so the idea
was you have aluminium and you have
bitumen plastic and you’ve got
corrugated panels that you use all over
the place in sheds and barns and all
kinds of construction but we could use
them here
and look showing off now but while we’re
at it till it’s made us a go-kart seat
from our fibers why not use that in
stadiums around the world why are we
sitting in all based plastics that’s
gonna wind up in the sea so it seems to
me anyway that time is right for him
because recently the media have really
got a buzz about it the New York Times
this year they highlighted this
potential construction future then their
Style section a few days later told our
hempen CBD is gaining momentum in the
beauty market and in Bloomberg even
suggested that hemp may have a
billion-dollar future so maybe Popular
Mechanics magazine were right 80 years
earlier with a billion dollar crop
prediction and since that era it’s
really remained in the dark and it’s not
been researched or grown or studied and
you know we humans really disconnected
from it and I think that if stay
disconnected is a serious big waste you
know our future needs all the help it
can find and I think surely that
includes learning from our past and you
know my farm adventures I’ve really
learned that there’s so much that can be
done with this plant like because
there’s so many possibilities there’s
still so much to learn you know how did
I get here well I I still don’t quite
know but I do know that this is this is
now all in our hands it’s in your hands
so business grads entrepreneurs
open-minded folks you know I think hemp
needs your ideas and it needs your
success for it to earn its place back on
our farm lands and then it could become
that cash crop that a farmers so badly
need in this country and it’s certainly
a big step toward a a cleaner healthier earth force ought to live thank you
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