{"id":7310,"date":"2017-03-26T05:27:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-26T05:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=5958"},"modified":"2017-03-26T05:27:24","modified_gmt":"2017-03-26T05:27:24","slug":"farmers-in-italy-fight-soil-contamination-with-cannabis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/farmers-in-italy-fight-soil-contamination-with-cannabis\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers In Italy Fight Soil Contamination With Cannabis"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/farmers-in-italy-fight-soil-contamination-with-cannabis\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>Taranto, Italy &#8212; Farmers in a region of Italy once known for cheeses have turned to cultivating a type of cannabis &#8212; not to smoke or sell &#8212; but to decontaminate polluted soil.<\/p>\n<p>The hemp they\u2019re growing contains very little THC &#8212; the compound that makes people high.<\/p>\n<p>Vincenzo Fornaro showed CBS News an empty farm, once packed with more than 600 sheep.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor generations, our family produced ricotta and meat,\u201d Fornaro recalled.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t until 2008 when Italy\u2019s government discovered the toxic chemical dioxin in his sheep and slaughtered the entire herd. The culprit was just a mile away.<\/p>\n<p>Contaminants spewing from a massive steel plant &#8212; Europe\u2019s largest &#8212; meant Fornaro could never have grazing animals again. To clean up his land he decided to try a rather unusual experiment.<\/p>\n<p>Fornaro planted industrial hemp to try to leach contaminants from the soil.<\/p>\n<p>The science is called phytoremediation &#8212; a process where contaminants are absorbed by the fast-growing roots of the cannabis plant which stores or, in some cases, transforms toxins into a harmless substance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou think this marijuana is the future of your farm?\u201d Doane asks Fornaro.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, absolutely,\u201d Fornaro said.<\/p>\n<p>Although Fornaro\u2019s crop is past harvest and doesn\u2019t look like much now, phytoremediation is proven to pull heavy metals from soil.<\/p>\n<p>It was used following the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl to remove radioactive strontium and cesium.<\/p>\n<p>Cannabis\u2019 future<br \/>\nClaudio Natile sells some of the thousands products made from industrial hemp including hemp oil, beer and pasta.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to eliminate the prejudice against cannabis,\u201d Natile said.<\/p>\n<p>He took CBS News to an apartment complex built from hemp composite materials. So passers-by don\u2019t miss the point, the grass out front is cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must innovate,\u201d Fornaro told CBS News, \u201cand develop in a way that\u2019s ecologically sound.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s in the shadow of the steel factory in Italy that Fornaro is pegging his future to a very different type of plant.<\/p>\n<p> <img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/farmers-in-italy-fight-soil-contamination-with-cannabis.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"> <\/p>\n<p>News Moderator: Katelyn Baker <a href=\"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\" target=\"_blank\">420 MAGAZINE \u00ae<\/a><br \/>\nFull Article: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/cannabis-plant-soil-decontamination-italy-vincenzo-fornaro\/\" target=\"_blank\">Farmers In Italy Fight Soil Contamination With Cannabis<\/a><br \/>\nAuthor: Seth Doane<br \/>\nContact: <a href=\"http:\/\/audienceservices.cbs.com\/feedback\/feedback.htm\" target=\"_blank\">CBS News<\/a><br \/>\nPhoto Credit: CBS News<br \/>\nWebsite: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/evening-news\" target=\"_blank\">CBS News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taranto, Italy &#8212; Farmers in a region of Italy once known for cheeses have turned to cultivating a type of&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/2017\/03\/farmers-italy-fight-soil-contamination-cannabis\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1614,9,1,3],"tags":[4182],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7310"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}