{"id":707307,"date":"2026-07-23T15:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707307\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T15:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T15:52:08","slug":"worcestershire-farm-raising-eyebrows-with-hemp-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707307\/","title":{"rendered":"Worcestershire farm &#8216;raising eyebrows&#8217; with hemp fields"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A farm in Worcestershire has been &#8220;raising eyebrows&#8221; among local villagers after it planted 30 hectares of hemp. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The plant, a variety of the cannabis sativa plant, is something farmers need a licence to grow in the UK. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jake Freestone, from Overbury Enterprises, on Bredon Hill, is one among 130 licensees who can legally cultivate the crop, which is used for clothes, rope, paper, sound proofing cars, and even for strengthening cement. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It looks very much like what it shouldn&#8217;t be, but it&#8217;s grown for its fibres, so the actual drug element has been bred out of these varieties,&#8221; the farm manager said. &#8220;There&#8217;s absolutely no special effects here, whatsoever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And despite its suspicious appearance, Freestone said the crop was giving his farm &#8220;resilience going forward&#8221; against a changing climate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are living in a changing climate, so the crops we have historically grown might not be as suitable going forward in dryer, hotter climates, and also in wetter climates as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is a crop we can plant slightly later in the spring and it&#8217;s very drought tolerant. It likes the heat and it&#8217;s probably about seven feet tall in places.&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A farm in Worcestershire has been &#8220;raising eyebrows&#8221; among local villagers after it planted 30 hectares of hemp.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-gb","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}