The president of Chanvrière de l'Aube, Benoît Savourat, is all the more confident in the future of his sector given that the 2021 harvest was good, after two summers of drought.
“This year, the production commitment of our members was 60,000 tonnes.
In 2022, it will be 80,000. We must therefore find additional areas, ”he said, referring to the necessary supply of the new industrial site for fiberizing and conditioning, built in 2020 near Troyes.
In the neighboring department of Marne, 1,907 hectares were planted with hemp by 110 farmers this year, or around 1/5 of the cooperative's activity.
The Olympic village partly designed in hemp concrete
Because the market, or rather the markets, are booming.
"Hemp fiber works well, whether for paper (the original outlet for La Chanvrière in the 1960s), insulation or textiles", continues the president.
Ditto for the seed, from which we make oil or mixtures for birds, and the central part of the straw (or hemp seed), which becomes both litter and vegetable aggregate for the manufacture of the mortar.
"Part of the Parisian Olympic village will be designed in hemp concrete", moreover welcomes Benoît Savourat, who mentions the recent doubling of orders.
“The availability of the material and the control of prices are of interest to manufacturers.
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Read also Essonne: a buyer offers a second chance to the hemp industry
A statement supported by the secretary general of the FFB (French Building Federation) in the Marne, Louis-Xavier Forest: “Our department has been a pioneer in research on biobased concrete for about fifteen years.
Le Bâtiment Associé, in Muizon, is an expert in the field and a laboratory exists at Arago high school in Reims, to help industrialize the process, ”he summarizes.
What to give, according to him, "intelligence in the use of materials, where they are available, as formerly the stone or the brick".
“The short circuit is coming back to the building industry, hemp is a good example.
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A local resource that is good for the environment
Provided, however, to be able to process huge volumes.
“In the building industry, new sector trials are carried out in real time, without really using a prototype, with a lot of constraints.
Farmers need to make a long-term commitment.
"Even more than the local aspect of the resource, it is, according to the president of La Chanvrière, the environmental question that appeals:" Hemp does not require irrigation or treatment and we put half the nitrogen in it than on a cereal.
Its root network fertilizes the soil in depth and one hectare of hemp stores as much carbon as one hectare of forest.
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