Industrial hemp at the NDSU Langdon Research Extension Center (NDSU Photo)
MORTON, Minn. – Crews on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation are using industrial hemp to build new housing.
Project manager Danny Desjarlais said a product called “hempcrete” replaces insulation and drywall during construction.
“It is just a lime-based binder mixed with some hemp hurd,” Desjarlais said. “The inside woody core of the stock looks like little pieces of wood chips. You add some water in with that and that’s your mixture.”
Desjarlais said hempcrete is more widely used now thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill.
“With hemp being illegal here in the United States we weren’t able to use hempcrete,” Desjarlais said. “Even now, with the building codes in the U.S., hempcrete is just getting into the building codes for wall insulation.”
Desjarlais said using hempcrete makes the walls mold-, fire- and pest-resistant, and will last hundreds of years.
Two duplexes are nearly complete and a tiny home is also under construction on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation. Occupants move into the Lower Sioux Community’s first hempcrete home in December.
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