A Guest Essay: Industrial Hemp in France: A Mission to Bridge the Atlantic Gap
A Guest Essay
Industrial Hemp in France: A Mission to Bridge the Atlantic Gap
By Kiko Thébaud
Upon our approach to CDG airport, thick cotton-like clouds gradually dissipated northwest of Paris’s outskirts revealing small towns scattered about vast stretches of fertile fields. In ‘l’hexagone,’ as the French refer to their six-sided country, agriculture is taken seriously. France, the European Union’s largest agricultural producer, operates INRAE—Europe’s preeminent agricultural research institute and a pillar that sustains food production while elevating what many consider the world’s finest cuisine.
A year ago, I had a discussion with James Farrell, Technical Committee Manager at ASTM International’s Hemp Division, which led me to have extended conversations with Pierre Bono, Managing Director at FRD-CODEM—a natural fiber and bio-based building materials research firm in Troyes, France, about establishing an industrial hemp fiber and hurd leadership engagement for ASTM International’s Hemp Division standards development. By mid-September, thanks to Hunter Buffington, ASTM International Industrial Hemp Division Subcommittee Chair, and Patrick Atagi, National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) President, my colleague Olaf Isele and I traveled to Troyes—the epicenter of French industrial hemp production—where we were the first to represent U.S.-based organizations in France since industrial hemp became federally legal in the U.S. Olaf, a Cincinnati-based chemical engineer and non-woven fiber expert, chairs ASTM International’s Hemp Division Fiber Task Group, and I’m a Boston-based architect and urban designer specializing in hemp-lime insulation, chairing the Building Standards Hemp-lime Task Group. While there, we met Pierre and his FRD-CODEM associates, Arnaud Day and Guillaume Delannoy. We also attended their 7th Natural Fibers and Polymers conference and had the unique opportunity to visit their laboratory.
Industrial Hemp’s Historical Significance
Humans have cultivated industrial hemp for over 12,000 years. Carl Sagan believed that civilization began with hemp cultivation for fiber, food, and medicine. It originated and has played an important role in Chinese culture, now the world’s largest producer, where it was briefly banned between 1985-2010. France, Europe’s largest producer has never prohibited industrial hemp for fiber and grain. Both countries have maintained this rotational crop because of its multiple benefits. It provides hemp seeds as a nutritionally balanced food rich in omega-3 oil, fiber for paper, textiles, and rope, and improves soil quality through both mycorrhizal fungi and its extensive root system. Additionally, industrial hemp is effective at carbon sequestration due to its fast growth and biomass production. China leads global production with 98,800 acres annually.1 France leads Europe with 60,000 acres and is planning to double production within five years. In 2024, the U.S. produced 18,855 acres for fiber and 4,863 for grain—significant progress in just 6 years, yet much remains to be learned about genetics, processing, and quality standards. The global industrial hemp market was valued at $8.29 billion in 2023 and is projected to expand with a 21.1% CAGR to $46.41 billion by 2032. 2 The fiber segment of this market was valued at $5.78 billion in 2024, and it is forecasted to reach $30.13 billion by 2033. 3
Troyes: Where History Meets Innovation
Troyes, a city of 80,000 residents, sits 87 miles southeast of Paris on the Seine River and the ancient Via Agrippa Roman highway. The city features three Gothic monuments—Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul Cathedral, Saint-Urbain Basilica, and Sainte-Madeleine Church, which is unusual for a city of this size. Troyes features many historically designated city-blocks housing medieval 16th century half-timbered Colombage architecture–an architectural typology that dates back to the Roman Empire–constructed 500-700 years ago using non-load-bearing insulating materials such as straw, clay, animal hair, stone, brick or a wattle-and-daub mix for infill between the voids of structural load-bearing timbers, and rendered over with a pigmented lime-sand plaster.
Forty years ago, just up the road from Troyes in, Nogent-sur-Seine, Charles Rasetti, a natural builder, invented hemp-lime insulation by combining industrial hemp hurd and lime binder (from limestone) to infill the half-timbers at the landmark house “La Maison de la Turque”. To this day, the plasters and hemp-lime insulation remain intact. Hemp-lime insulation is non-toxic, provides significant heating and cooling savings, enables effective hygrothermal transfers, resists fire and mold, has low embodied carbon, increases lateral structural stability, and limits flood damage, leaving synthetic insulations in the dust.
Nearby in Saint-Lyé, La Chanvrière operates the world’s largest industrial hemp processing plant, celebrating 50 years of production. The cooperative’s 700+ farmers cultivate 27,000 acres annually with a 14-17 metric tons per hour throughput producing about 90,000 metric tons per year. In their beginning, operations were mainly for industrial hemp paper. This is optimal given that an acre of industrial hemp produces more biomass in 3.5 – 4 months than an acre of the fastest growing trees does in a year. 4 Typically, paper pulp from trees requires a minimum of 20 – 30 years to harvest. Today, La Chanvrière also produces fiber at different lengths, hemp hurd for multiple uses, and grain, with two-thirds of these goods exported to Europe, North America, and China.
The Conference: Natural Fibers Meet High Performance
The 7th Natural Fibers and Polymers Congress, co-curated by FRD-CODEM and APM, showcased European projects advancing natural fibers toward a circular bioeconomy. Industry leaders included Airbus Defence and Space, Michelin, Forvia, and the Alliance for European Flax-Linen; institutional participants included Ademe, INRAE, and the University of Innsbruck. Standout presentations included: BioStruct displaying recyclable flax fiber wind turbine blades and a flax-basalt motorboat hull. Valentine Troi from GROWNlab, U of Innsbruck, demonstrating hemp fiber composites for ski and hiking poles. Arnaud Day of FRD-CODEM, discussed the integration of quality management tools to improve fibers/lignocellulosic aggregates in materials (textiles, composites, buildings, etc.). Forvia’s Laurence Dufranctel discussed their Materi’act division producing millions of hemp bio-composite dashboards for Stellantis, Renault, and Jaguar Land Rover. Temca’s Jean-Claude Boudiere presented architect Rudy Ricciotti’s Jacques Chirac School Complex featuring flax fiber composite sunshades. A final roundtable discussion on Life Cycle Assessment of bio-based materials facilitated by Guillaume Delannoy of FRD-CODEM, Lorie Hamelin of INRAE, Erwan Grossman of Kairos Environment, and Christophe Calais of Arkema revealed ongoing challenges in standardizing this scientific methodology.
The Mission Forward
NIHC will continue to mobilize stakeholder networks and develop foreign trade markets for agriculture products through the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, compensating for the nearly-century long absence of the U.S. from the industry. ASTM International’s Hemp Division will implement industrial hemp compliance standards to support and harmonize international trade. ASTM International’s Hemp Division discussions with FRD-CODEM are ongoing to see how to bridge industrial hemp’s Atlantic gap with French know-how. The agronomic case is compelling for industrial hemp as it enriches soil with deep taproots, sequesters carbon, demands minimal water compared to corn and wheat, which when planted after industrial hemp’s rotation, can increase the yield of the harvest by ten percent or more. Moreover, it requires no herbicides or fungicides, and less or no pesticides. 5 Hurd combined with a lime binder offers 21st-century insulation with high-thermal performance, a healthy living environment, and climate resilience. Advances in degumming, cottonized fiber blending, semi-long and long fibers have transformed hemp textiles, eliminating fabric stiffness. With ongoing effort and commitment, this extraordinary plant can become more deeply integrated in tomorrow’s circular bioeconomy and can certainly make a meaningful contribution towards sustaining civilization.
1 The Valorization of Fibers, Presentation and Discussion, Tom Gong of Hemp Fortex, discussed Chinese production at the 1st World Hemp Forum, Troyes, France, November 19 & 20, 2024.
2 Global Industrial Hemp Market Size, Share, Trends – Analysis Report, by Zion Market Research. Global market figures are by type (seeds, seed oil, fiber and others), and by application (food, beverages, personal care, and cosmetics, textiles, pharmaceuticals and others), and by region – global and regional industry overview, market intelligence, comprehensive analysis, historical data and forecast 2024-2032 in its research database, 2025-2032. New York, USA, Globe Newswire, see also Yahoo Finance, August 6, 2025.
3 Hemp Fiber Market Set to Surpass Valuation of US $30.13 Billion – Analysis Report, by Astute Analytica. Global market figures for industrial hemp fiber, figures project a CAGR of 20.12% during the forecast period 2025-2033. Chicago, USA, Globe Newswire, July 15, 2025.
4 Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material, Lyster H. Dewey, Botanist in Charge of Fiber-Plant Investigations and Jason L. Merrill, Paper-Plant Chemist, Paper-Plant Investigations, Bulletin No.404, United States Department of Agriculture, October 14, 1916
5 Portraits de Chanvriers (Portraits of Industrial Hemp Workers), Nathalie Fichaux, Director of InterChanvre and Secretary General of Constuire en Chanvre et al, an all-cast collection of essays from farmers, agronomists, processors, industrialists, managers, administrators, architects, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Quote is a synthesized from multiple essays from farmers who grow industrial hemp. InterChanvre, 2024.