New Green Revolution
"Hemp is what I call the new green revolution. For the past 5 years I’ve been growing hemp in the state of Minnesota, but I’m interested in fiber hemp because it is the new green revolution. They say 70 years ago we had a choice between a carbohydrate economy and a hydrocarbon economy – carbohydrate or hydrocarbon – and we made the wrong choice. The carbohydrate economy was hemp. Anything that you can do with fossil fuels you can do with hemp, plus more. Just think about the fact that the word “canvas” comes from cannabis.
It turns out that lot of our tribes have both feral varieties of hemp leftover from the eradication program. Somehow they didn’t get to us. So there is some hemp in our territories, some Cannabis sativa in our territories; that still grows. There is an initiative underway now for tribes of large land areas to begin looking at hemp as a part of transforming the materials economy. If you could take all the things you make out of plastic and make them out of hemp, that’d be revolutionary. And that’s what I want to see.
Up in northern Minnesota, we’re growing hemp. It is going to be part of the revolution. If you want to transform the world, this is our opportunity. Systems are crashing. Idols are falling. Fossil fuels are failing. Now will be the time to walk through that portal and to make that new economy. From my little neck of the woods, up on the White Earth reservation, to all of you elsewhere, let’s get local, let’s get renewable energy, let’s get local foods. Let’s grow some hemp. And let’s use our Indigenous knowledge of transition. Remember, we’re a people that are post-apocalyptic. We have lived through our own apocalypse and, as the world around us is shaking, we can be coherent because we know how to get through this: stick with our traditions and pray hard. Get yourself a green thumb – now is the time."[1]