On this week’s Hemp Podcast, I recap my recent visit to the Heart of Europe, the Golden City, the City of a Hundred Spires, the capital city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia — Prague.

The occasion for my trip was the European Industrial Hemp Association’s 21st annual Conference, this year held in the Czech Republic.

I was invited to be part of an American delegation representing the American hemp industry. The trip was funded through a grant from the USDA Market Access Program, or MAPS.

The Market Access Program allows the Foreign Agricultural Service, the FAS, to partner with American trade associations, cooperatives, trade groups and small business “to share the costs of overseas marketing and promotional activities that help build commercial export markets for U.S. agricultural products and commodities,” according to the USDA website.

The National Industrial Hemp Council was given official cooperator status by the USDA earlier this year, giving it access to MAP funding.

At the conference, I witnessed my fellow Americans developing relationships and making business deals, and I saw the purpose of the USDA’s Market Access Program playing out in real time.

During the conference, I interviewed over 30 hemp people from around the world.

On this episode we’ll hear what people had to say about hemp in Europe, what the U.S. can learn from the Europeans, what the Europeans can learn from the U.S., and a whole lot more.

Before the conference started June 5, Lorenza Romanese, managing director of the European Industrial Hemp Association, was hopeful for a successful event.

“I hope that people will engage. I hope that people will go back home knowing more than what they knew when they arrived,” she said. “I hope that they are able to develop business opportunities.”

Francesco Mirizzi is senior policy advisor at EIHA and focuses on the fiber and grain sectors.

He said the fiber industry is well developed in Europe, thanks in large part to farmers and processors in France.

“We kept production in Europe after the Second World War, and we have something like seven or eight big size decortication facilities that allowed us to build a market for fiber,” he said, “mostly dedicated to specific paper application composites, and especially in the automobile industry, and fibers for insulation material in construction and chives (hurd) for construction, like hempcrete.”

An epicenter of hemp construction in Europe is war-torn Ukraine, less than 800 miles to the east of Prague.

Sergiy Kovalenkov is a Ukranian hemp builder who has been teaching refugees displaced by Russia’s war on Ukraine how to rebuild with hemp.

“We train the refugees, the people that lost their houses. And they started to build their own homes during the war using local biomass,” he said.

“So when you tell me you have problems, trust me, let’s go to Ukraine. I’ll show you what problems are,” he said.

Hana Gabrielová, a recent podcast guest, is from Czech Republic and was instrumental in bringing the conference to her home country.

She has worked with hemp for over 20 years and is involved in many ares of hemp in Europe, including as a board member of EIHA as well as a member of the CzecHemp Cluster, an advisory board to help guide and grow the Czech hemp industry domestically and abroad.

Gabrielová was very kind to me, pointing me in the right direction on Czech food, restaurants, pilsner, and what I should see while visiting this ancient city.

She recommended the svíčková (pronounced sveech-covah), which she described as the national dish consisting of a root vegetable cream sauce and high quality beef sirloin, served with dumplings. It was good.

As for what to see in Prague, she said I should see the astronomical clock in Old Town Square and the Charles Bridge over the River Vltava.

“They are not far from each other,” she said. “Prague is not too big so you can walk it out and have a nice afternoon and see everything basically,” she said.

I took her advice and wandered around the city each day after the conference ended. I cannot express to you how impressive the city was to me, with its ancient streets of cobblestone and castles and medieval fortresses.

So much history in one place.

But not all ancient history.

I was inspired to learn more about the Velvet Revolution that took place in 1989. It started as student protests against the one party rule of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. Within a week, the crowd grew to over 500,000 people in Wenceslas Square, shaking their house keys, telling the communists to step down and go home.

It worked. By the end of the month, the party relinquished control over the people.

I think we can all learn lessons from this story. We the people hold the power.

IN this episode you will hear: 15:22 Hana Gabrielová https://hempoint.cz/en/ https://www.konopius.com/ 17:05 Lorenza Romanese EIHA Managing Director https://eiha.org/ 21:18 Francesco Mirizzi Sr. Policy Advisor, EIHA 27:06 Laurie Blanchecotte Antoine Moussie La Chanvrière 32:51 Sergiy Kovalenkov Ukrainian Hemp Builder https://hempire.tech 36:13 Jörg Morgner Axel Philipps https://www.temafa.com/ 38:43 Otilia Frolu Romanian Hemp Cluster 42:45 Stephania Christodoulou Pavlos Kitsis https://klostiki.com/ 50:15 Daniel Kruse https://hempconsult.com/daniel-kruse/ 53:26 Catherine Wilson https://uk.linkedin.com/in/catherine-wilson-b2a7133b 58:20 Christophe Nourissier https://en.augur.associates/equipe 1:07:26 Maciej Kowalski https://kombinatkonopny.pl/ 1:10:27 Daniel Matthews, Caroline Matthews, Tatham https://tatham-uk.com/ 1:12:47 Frederic Vallier Maren Krings Federation of International Hemp Organizations     https://marenkrings.com/

Learn More about USDA's Market Access program https://fas.usda.gov/programs/market-access-program-map

Learn More about the National Industrial Hemp Council https://nihcoa.com/

News Nuggets Pa. Gov. Visits Lancaster County Hemp Farm to Announce Ag Innovation Grant https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/news/shapiro-farm-visit-promotes-10m-for-ag-innovation-in-budget-proposal/article_65f3adfe-2755-11ef-a48b-4f9a0a14b320.html

2024 NIHH Hemp Building WorkshopJune 20 – 21 • maple park, IL Register: https://nihh.org/

Read Eric Hurlock's blog about his trip to Praguehttps://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/follow-lancaster-farming-at-the-2024-european-industrial-hemp-conference-in-prague/collection_64c3071c-1f54-11ef-aa56-63dfa0a4ce3f.html

Lancaster Hemp Circuit, August 20-21Learn more and register: info@kingsagriseeds.com

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Music by Tin Bird Shadow https://tinbirdshadow.bandcamp.com/album/dot-dot-dot