Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Sandrine Legros, Sébastien Picault and Nicolas Cerruti
Institut Technique du Chanvre (ITC), France
5.1 Introduction
building materials and plastics grow and
develop. It has now become necessary to
update, refocus and coordinate hemp research
in order to meet the needs and expectations of
these markets, which demand improved yield
and quality of the raw material.
This chapter will provide an account of the
work conducted on hemp in France between
1970 and the present day. Which research
areas have received attention? What significant
results have been obtained in this time? What
can we consider to be the current state of our
understanding? What are the latest research
issues and where are they leading? These are
the questions that we will address. This chapter
does not purport to be a source of scientific
references, but rather seeks to provide an over-
view of the experimental work conducted by
the FDGEDA de l'Aube and the Chambre
d'Agriculture de l'Eure, the ITC and the FNPC.
This treatment endeavours to blend our current
knowledge with that we have inherited from
the past but which has often been scattered
and unformalized. It is hoped this will be of use
to those working with this crop in the future.
This chapter summarizes the results of
performance trials undertaken by the following
institutions: La Fédération Départementale des
Groupements d'Etude et de Développement
Agricole de l'Aube (FDGEDA), La Fédération
Nationale des Producteurs de Chanvre (FNPC),
Institut Technique du Chanvre (ITC) and the
cooperative La Chanvrière de l'Aube (LCDA) and
Le Syndicat des Producteurs de Chanvre (SPC).
Cultivated by humans for several thousand
years, hemp has long played an important role
in the European agricultural landscape. In
France, in the 19th century, up to 200,000 ha
was devoted to its production. As demand for
its end products was gradually extinguished by
competition from exotic or artificial fibres, it
almost disappeared from the scene.
Despite these obstacles, work on hemp
selection and agronomic research never ceased
completely. Over the past 40 years, a consid-
erable number of field trials and experiments
have been conducted within organizations.
The objective was to understand the plant and
its agronomic performance better. These
efforts focused on both improving yields and
meeting legislative rules. The paper industry
that between the 1940s and the 1990s was
the only industrial outlet for hemp was able to
continue sourcing its raw material. Today, new
opportunities are opening up as markets in
5.1.1 Technical sources
This chapter has drawn on the following sources:
•
FDGEDA de l'Aube: field trials undertaken
between 1980 and 1999.
