Hemp Festival hopes to educate and remove stigma
KERSEY - The Pennsylvania Hemp Agriculture Festival (PAHF), which promotes hemp education, will take place at the Elk County Fairgrounds on Saturday, July 30.
For a second year, PAHF will hold its festival featuring speakers and vendors geared toward promoting a better understanding of hemp, hemp farming and the hemp industry. The festival will be held at the Kersey venue from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
According to Jessie Johnson, founder of Purple Peace, a nationwide healthcare consulting firm, the Women of Weedville will host the PAHF event, which will include equipment demonstrations, live building applications, local hemp products, and information on farming sustainability.
“The objective of this annual festival is to educate, collaborate and connect communities together with the knowledge and purpose of how hemp is important to our farming and processing supply to the lifestyle and wellness industry,” Johnson said.
The festival will be be focused on supporting local business and organizations that are working to improve sustainability through farming hemp. The mission is to educate the public about the landscape of industrial hemp and why hemp can be utilized as an alternative crop for more than 800 Pennsylvania farmers.
In addition, the event’s objective is to raise awareness of the financial climate and environmental benefits of industrial hemp for individuals and businesses.
However, the hemp industry has long been battling the stigma of being what some have called, marijuana’s cousin. A common misconception is that marijuana and hemp are the same thing, merely because it is part of the cannabis family.
Hemp, in fact, contains infinitesimal amounts of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. This part of the cannabis plant contains 0.3% or less of THC, meaning that hemp-derived products don’t contain enough THC to create a high normally associated with marijuana.
But before hemp got a bad rap, it was used for many different medicinal purposes. Hemp is rich in healthy fats, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, both of which are known for improving heart health.
Hemp is also good for health of skin, joints, muscles and the immune system, according to hemp industry statistics.
In industry, hemp fiber can be used in fabric, insulation, carpeting, and fiber board and is considered the strongest natural fiber in the world.
Hemp hurds, which are the woody inner parts of the hemp stalk, can be cleanly converted into gasoline. Through a heat process called, pyrolysis, hemp biomass can be made into ethanol, methanol and methane gas.
As a resource, hemp can yield three to eight dry tons of fiber per acre, which is four times what an average forest can yield. Or in other words, one acre of hemp planted for 40 years has 400% more useable fiber than one acre of trees in that same 40-year life cycle.
All parts of the plant can be used for industrial use, even hemp waste, which can be used in products such as paper, fertilizer, soil nutrients and animal bedding.
Johnson said the hemp agricultural industry hopes the festival will bring the community together to educate the public on the importance of hemp farming both environmentally and economically.
“We gain support and influencers daily, but some people aren’t able to differentiate industrial hemp from its shunned cousin, medical marijuana. We identified the root cause is the lack of education. This is why we host this event,” she said.
For more information, visit www.womenofweedville.com