Report from KONO-BUSINESS 2005 in the Czech Republic

The Fair on industrial use of hemp - KONO-BUSINESS 2005 - is over now. After four long years the hemp has returned to the exhibition area of Vystaviste in the South Bohemian town of Ceské Budejovice (Budweiss), offering the general public an opportunity to rediscover hemp with respect to the wide scope of its utilization - as a traditional culture plant providing the man with vitally important materials, while causing no negative impacts on human health and life environment. Members and supporters of the civic association Konopa have turned the Exhibition Hall S into a completely different world.

The Fair was located at the other end of exhibition area, decently pushed apart from the main exhibition surfaces. It wasn’t too easy to find our Exhibition Hall, and the visitors had to prove a lot of tenacity and determination to make it there. But once on the spot, not everybody could bear the idea of such an alien space. I heard an elderly couple saying: "Hemp World?... that’s merely mad!" Right, out of those 82 000 of the official number of visitors only a minor part had made it to the Exhibition Hall S. The minor and spirited part of them.

And what could those braves expect there? Right in front of the Hall was standing a genuine Indian tee-pee made of hemp canvas, inside of which the visitors could taste quality brand refreshing teas. Portal of the Hall was decorated with a large lettering of hemp stems handcrafted by Petr Zacek, ecologist and builder of a hemp house, reading THE HEMP WORLD and on the windowsills were standing pots with growing hemp plants. The exhibition itself had a circular form with a kiosk of our association constructed of hemp stems and straw in the middle.

Information boards on the walls explaining the historical role of hemp and the tradition of the Fair, including the motivations leading us to its organization, were informing the visitors. A hand-made painting on hemp canvas was explaining the ecological hemp economy and the life cycle of the plant. David Nemecek from the civic association Slunecni dvur (Sun Yard) presented a breathtaking show with an exhibition of traditional processing of hemp stems and production of cordages on historical equipment borrowed from the Cordages Museum in Destna. Small pieces of handmade rope made a great pleasure to visitors of all ages as souvenirs from the Fair. There was also a place for hemp paper, bioplastics, construction materials and energy-resourceful "wastes". All these accompanied with information on ecological advantages of their use. Photographs from the contest Reflex Cannabis Cup were also attracting many visitors. Together with the photographs of Vaclav Vasku, Josef Dvorak and ours these pictures were witnessing the unique beauty of the hemp plant.

Further on, the visitors could make their shopping of hemp fabrics and cloths, hemp books, healing cosmetics and body care, homemade muesli bars and other stuff. A really good incentive to make a nice trip across the near border was given by exhibitors from two Austrian villages, who are using hemp in order to develop their communes. Even the natives from Ceske Budejovice spoiled by their exquisite Budweisser beer appreciated Austrian hemp beer. A specialized workshop was the right place for Czech and foreign hemp producers, researchers and activists to exchange their precious knowledge and experiences in this area. The hemp producer André Fürst from Switzerland perfumed the Hall with his essential oils. Another Swiss, the photographer Stefan, provided a media coverage of our Fair at the CANNATRADE website. The representative of German Group for the Czech Hemp, Mr. Sälzle, was helping to keep the business going and ideas flowing by his good mood and matter-of-fact attitude.

Tired visitors could recover their forces for an affordable price with a lunch composed of healthy and nutritional as well as tasty hemp food. Fresh bread made of hemp flour in the bakery of Vlachovo Brezi gained a great popularity among the visitors. Well-fed visitors could then rest on a hemp seat and watch documentary films on hemp farming and processing in South Korea, Serbia, Swiss, France, USA or in our country. Fashion shows on Thursday and Saturday had blown into the Hemp World a fresh air of playfulness. Visitors passionate of the fantasy literature could listen in the tee-pee tea-room to an author reading from the trilogy "The Hemp Lady" by Bushka Bryndova - a hemp inspired parody of the Lord of the Rings. Our visitors were leaving burdened with acquisitions of their shopping and enriched with knowledge, and therefore the happy expression on their faces was no surprise, although no cannabis drugs containing THC were available there. Some have been just happy to be gone through, but some others were joyfully imagining the future. How would it be, if that small world enclosed within the walls of Exhibition Hall S could spread around and become a part of the day-to-day reality?

The Hemp World was a sociological experiment of its kind - age structure or behavior of its visitors would be helpful to identify the groups of population open to unknown and unusual things. Generally speaking, most of the reactions from our visitors were positive. We’ve noticed that apart the young folks, who had hard times to admit that this hemp wouldn’t bring them high, "alternative freaks" could be found within all age categories: the most tolerant and knowledgeable were members of the oldest generation, who still could remember the hand work, but also young parents actively caring for their own health and the health of their children, and therefore for a healthy environment, too. It was the generation of people around fifty and elders, who were the most distrustful, who reticently tasted the hemp seeds and received information on their health effects.

The Fair KONO-BUSINESS 2005 has fulfilled our objectives - it contributed to the information of general public on possibilities and advantages of industrial use of the hemp. Concentrating the active participants of hemp industry in the Czech Republic and other countries of Europe into one place, it promoted the development of this branch of human activity presently in full renaissance.

Michal Ruman, Bushka Bryndova, civic association Konopa

List of exhibitors

Photos from the Fair