Welcome to the Journal of Industrial Hemp

This issue starts with a paper by Karin Magnusson and Bengt Svennerstedt on the influence of temperature on water retting of Swedish-grown hemp. The next paper by Robert Clarke presents a detailed description as well as beautiful pictures of traditional Cannabis cultivation in the Darchula region of Nepal. This agricultural system provides a rare example where all three major products–seeds and resin from the female flowers as well as fibre from the stems–are extracted from the same crop. The article by Lea Turunen and Hayo van der Werf presents the production chain of hemp and flax textile yarn in Europe from crop production up to the spinning of yarn. It aims to quantify major environmental impacts associated with the production of hemp yarn using Life Cycle Analysis. In the next paper Estelle Garnier et al. describe the dynamics of the French hemp system and its stakeholders. They investigate the role of organisations, crop production, primary transformation and both public and private research. We learn that the number of hemp-related patents is on the increase in France.