By Tobie Blanchard
LSU AgCenter
Casey Stannard admits she didn’t have any experience with hemp fiber throughout her studies and career in apparel design until she took on a recent research project.
The associate professor in the LSU College of Agriculture Department of Textiles, Apparel Design and Merchandising said that was the case for many of her students and colleagues even though hemp was the first cultivated fiber, with evidence of hemp ropes in ancient China and along the Dead Sea dating back between 3,000 and 10,000 B.C.E.