Meet the Ingredient: Hemp, A Short History of One of the World's Oldest Crops

October 12, 2026

Hemp is a variety of Cannabis sativa L., a member of the Cannabaceae family, grown for its strong stem fibre and its edible seed. It is among the oldest crops people have worked with, and its story runs from the first Neolithic farms of East Asia to the sails of the great sailing ships and, today, the pantry shelf.

Where it began

A 2021 genome study in Science Advances compared the genomes of many cultivated and wild plants and concluded that C. sativa was first domesticated in early Neolithic times in East Asia, with the early domesticated lineage splitting from its wild relatives roughly 12,000 years ago (the statistical range is wide, from about 6,500 to 15,700 years). The authors found that the plant was used as a general-purpose crop until about 4,000 years ago, when selection began to pull fibre types and other types apart.

A horticultural review by Ernest Small and David Marcus reports that hemp was harvested in China about 8,500 years ago, that surviving hemp cloth is around 6,000 years old, and that the oldest surviving paper, also from China, was made from hemp fibre.

Travelling west

Hemp reached Europe later than you might expect. A 2018 critical review of the archaeology found no robust evidence of use in Neolithic Europe; the first solid finds come from the Copper Age and Bronze Age in the south-east, and the authors argue that Iron Age steppe peoples, the Scythians, probably introduced cultivation to Celtic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric groups. A fibre specialist's history for the United Nations adds finds from the eighth century BC at Gordion in Turkey, and says the crop spread through Italy in the sixth and fifth centuries BC.

Rope, sail and paper

The fibre comes from the bast, the strong outer layers of the stem. The Roman writer Pliny, according to the United Nations history, mentions hemp only as a source of cords and hunting nets. For centuries hemp was the great cordage fibre. Small and Marcus note that until the early 1800s it was the leading rope fibre, that sailing ships depended on it, and that our word "canvas" derives from Cannabis. Hemp and flax were also the main raw materials for paper until wood pulp took over in the mid-1800s. The crop crossed the Atlantic too: it was spreading in Chile from 1545, Puritans took it to North America in 1645, and United States Navy demand for sailcloth and rope drove a boom between 1840 and 1860.

The seed in the background

The same review says that hemp seed has been pressed for oil for at least 3,000 years, and that the oil was formerly used in paints, varnishes and soap. For most of its history hemp was valued far more as a fibre than as a food, and the authors describe seed and oil uses as growing. Studies of the seed show why it appeals: it holds roughly 25–35% oil and 20–25% protein.

Food hemp today

The twentieth century was hard on hemp: Small and Marcus record that a 1938 US law essentially ended American hemp production, and that Canada made cultivation illegal the same year. In Great Britain today, anyone growing it needs a Home Office licence and may sow only approved varieties, whose THC content must not exceed 0.2%. Licences cover the seed and the mature stalk; leaves and flowers are not permitted. Food hemp is therefore a low-THC crop, bred and grown for fibre and seed.

How it is grown now

Hemp is a spring-sown annual. In a recent field trial of 'Henola', a monoecious (male and female flowers on the same plant) oil-type variety, the crop was sown between mid-April and mid-May and harvested in August, with seed yields of roughly 1.6 to 2.9 tonnes per hectare depending on sowing date, spacing and fertiliser.

From seed to oil

Our oil is made by cold-pressing carefully selected organic hemp seeds grown in Europe. Cold-pressing is mechanical, with no chemical solvents, and keeps the oil's green colour and its smooth, nutty taste. Because hemp oil is rich in polyunsaturated fats, it is best kept cool and dark.

In the kitchen

Use it cold. It suits dressings, drizzling and finishing dishes, where its nutty flavour can be tasted. Try it over roast vegetables once they are out of the oven, stirred through warm pasta, or over a bowl of porridge.