Jungmaven
Hemp material dates back as far as 8,000 B.C.E. America was founded on it- both Presidents Washington and Jefferson grew it, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on it, and the pioneers covered their wagons with it.
Jungmaven founder Robert Jungmann strongly believes in working with hemp for multiple reasons. Hemp is a natural fiber that’s cultivated with low impact on the environment. It requires no irrigation, uses no pesticides, synthetic fertilizers or GMO seeds. It’s one of the most durable natural fibers on the planet and results in a fabric with a wonderful hand. Hemp also scrubs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Cultivation of hemp improves soil health, and farmers can plant food crops in the same field immediately after a hemp harvest. In this way, farmers can grow cash crops and food crops on the same land. Hemp is an important alternative to cotton, which uses more insecticides than any other crop.
Unfortunately, industrial hemp is illegal to grow in many parts of the world. Activists, businesses and farmers alike are working hard to get the laws changed, but government agencies continue to mistakenly associate it with marijuana. Jungmaven currently imports its high-quality hemp fabric from China, currently the world’s largest producer of industrial hemp.
In 2010, Jungmaven launched a campaign, Hemp 2020, to help raise awareness about the positive environmental impacts of hemp farming. The campaign’s vision is to “get everyone in a hemp t-shirt by 2020". Hemp 2020 aims to get industrial hemp legal state by state. Its efforts are to help slow climate change by growing hundreds of thousands of acres of hemp to be used for food, homes, cars, paper, plastics, textiles, fuel and more.
To cut back on waste, Jungmaven does not use hangtags and ships its products with no packaging or plastics.