From Flax Habits to Hemp Futures: Europe’s Learning Curve Begins

Make no mistake: hemp is rooted here. Europe’s new hemp acreage begins not in factories or ministries, but in the soil itself. The revival is driven by growers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands who see potential for rotation crops that improve soil structure and sequester carbon while qualifying for EU green payments. At the same time, they also face an unfamiliar agronomic puzzle: hemp grows easily, but growing it well for textiles is another matter.

Sophie Waegebaert, Crop Researcher at Inagro, says, "In Western Europe (France, Belgium, The Netherlands), a well-established flax value chain is already present. Flax growers are also interested in hemp for the production of long fibre. However, we see that, although we have the knowledge and the machines, demand for hemp fibres and yarns remains low. Before we can talk about minimal market guarantees, we still need more experience with hemp in this region." Inagro is a Belgian applied research and advisory centre supporting farmers and horticulturists in their transition to more sustainable and innovative agricultural practices.

Her observation sums up the region’s contradiction: the technology exists, but the practical knowhow and steady buyers are not easy to come by. Even in Belgium’s intensively managed fields, the transition from flax to hemp requires fresh protocols for retting timing, plant density, and harvest sequencing. Trials show that a three-day difference in dew patterns can alter fibre colour and strength, creating inconsistency that processors are reluctant to accept. Such volatility is why farmers still approach the crop as a trial rather than a commodity.

Soils pose another constraint. In Belgium, where land rents and labour costs are among Europe’s highest, growers must weigh hemp against higher-value alternatives. Waegebaert explains, "I think this depends on the region where the hemp is grown. In Belgium, for example, farming soils and labour are expensive. So, it might be better to grow hemp for textile/food/CBD applications as the financial return is higher compared to hemp for construction. Also, hemp grown for textile applications needs good soils (no compaction, good nutrient profile, etc). I am convinced that all hemp applications can coexist. So yes, the textile sector stands a chance."

Industrial hemp typically produces 6–10 tonnes of dry stalks per hectare compared with flax’s 3–4 tonnes. That biomass advantage suggests superior returns, yet quality matters more than quantity: if retting fails, half the yield can be lost to waste. Climate adds another irritant. Only regions with alternating rain and sun in August can achieve reliable field retting, limiting high-grade output to the same northern belt that already favours flax.

Water and nutrient profiles further distinguish hemp from its rival fibres. The crop requires only 300–600 litres of water per kilogram of fibre, about 90 percent less than cotton. It thrives without herbicides and returns organic matter to the soil, reducing fertiliser inputs and supporting biodiversity targets under the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Those traits align perfectly with regional sustainability agendas but do not offset the absence of predictable markets. Without contracts or off-take guarantees, farmers depend on pilot projects and research subsidies to justify the risk. It would seem farmers are standing on shaky ground.

Across the flax-hemp region, the message from agronomists is consistent: Europe has the land and climate to scale hemp sustainably, but it lacks the continuity of experience that makes an industry resilient. Until that learning curve flattens, the continent’s new hemp fields will remain an experiment in progress—a test of whether policy ambition and soil science can finally converge.

The real constraint on Europe’s hemp revival is not in the fields but between them—in the missing layers of experience that connect farmers to fibre processors. After years of policy enthusiasm, most of the knowledge being applied to hemp today is—ahem—inherited from flax.

What works for one bast fibre rarely transfers cleanly to another. Hemp’s longer, coarser stalks demand different handling and retting cycles, but the technical protocols, machinery settings and training systems remain patchwork at best.

Nathalie Revol, Hemp Project Manager at Lin et Chanvre Bio, has spent years adapting flax machinery to suit hemp’s taller stems. She recalls that “our work resulted in the construction of a prototype of mowing tool in 2021 that allows the stems to be paralleled to the ground for uniform field retting on a flax model. This year there were 1,700 hectares in France with 20 mowers in operation across the territory. Then the hemp is scutched on linen scutch lines into long fibres for wet spinning. It’s new.” Her prototype shows what research can achieve with limited budgets—small, incremental progress rather than industrial transformation. Lin et Chanvre Bio is a French non-profit association that unites actors across the flax and hemp sectors committed to sustainable and organic production

Those 20 mowers illustrate a deeper truth: the sector’s infrastructure remains embryonic. According to industry data, only a dozen facilities across Europe can decorticate hemp at scale, and just six possess the equipment needed for cottonisation — the process that converts hemp into fibres short enough to run on conventional cotton spinning systems. That bottleneck explains why, despite higher acreage, much of the continent’s hemp still travels abroad for processing. The result is a paradoxical “European” fibre that crosses borders twice before entering local textile supply chains.

Valentine Donck, Project Manager for Bio-based Textiles at Valbiom, links the challenge to timing. “It’s true that European hemp acreage has increased—for example, around 2,000 hectares of long-fibre hemp have been cultivated annually in France over the past two years. But cultivation is only the starting point: turning hemp straw into high-quality yarn requires several complex steps. … At present, processing capacity remains the bottleneck.” Donck’s warning points to the industry’s unfinished ecosystem: farmers grow, researchers pilot, but few intermediaries bridge the two. Valbiom is a Belgian non-profit association dedicated to accelerating the transition toward a sustainable, circular bioeconomy.

Technology is beginning to fill some of those gaps. New microbial and enzymatic retting methods are being developed to replace inconsistent dew or water retting, halving process times while improving fibre quality. Advanced bio-enzymes now target the pectin layer that binds hemp fibres to their woody core, improving softness and yield. Yet these innovations remain in trial phases, accessible mainly to pilot projects such as Hemp4Circularity, which connects growers, scutchers and spinners across North-West Europe. For most commercial farms, access to such technology remains distant.

Experience—rather than acreage—is therefore becoming hemp’s decisive variable. The continent has rediscovered its crop but not yet the industrial habits to sustain it. Until practical know-how becomes routine, every hectare planted adds data rather than stability.

The next phase of Europe’s hemp experiment will depend less on political ambition and more on what happens after harvest: whether growers, engineers and processors can turn prototypes and pilot lines into lasting industrial competence.

The success of hemp’s agronomic revival now depends less on how it grows and more on how it is governed. European regulation defines the limits of ambition as clearly as it sets the boundaries of legality. The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) allows subsidies only for industrial hemp containing less than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) by dry weight, a threshold raised from 0.2 percent in 2021 after more than two decades of tighter control. The rule protects against the cultivation of drug-type varieties, but it also makes farming riskier. Minor temperature or soil variations can push THC levels just above the threshold, forcing the destruction of entire crops and disqualifying farmers from subsidy payments. That makes it a tricky terrain to walk through.

But then, these controls were designed for compliance, not innovation. Climate change has added volatility that the original rule never anticipated. In 2024, the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee proposed lifting the cap to 0.5 percent to give farmers a safety margin and align with standards already used in Switzerland and Czechia. The move has strong support from the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA), which contends that a higher threshold would not alter the plant’s psychoactive status but would reduce waste and stabilise yields. The change could mean the difference between a viable harvest and a financial loss triggered by an uncontrollable variable.

Waegebaert points to another form of fragmentation. “This question can be more clearly answered by the EIHA. However, we see that different regulations exist within Europe. and this might have a negative impact on the commercialisation of hemp in general. EIHA has done a great job on putting this on the European agenda. Their efforts are very valuable.” The variation she describes is not theoretical. France, for instance, still enforces a national limit of 0.2 percent, below the EU-wide ceiling, and requires additional field inspections and DNA testing These anomalies complicate cross-border trade and discourage investors from financing decortication or spinning plants that depend on predictable raw material flows.

At the same time, Brussels is considering a broader reform that could redefine hemp’s economic identity. A pending proposal would classify the plant’s entire biomass—including flowers, leaves, and roots—as an eligible agricultural product under CN code 1211 90 86. If approved, that recognition would allow farmers to claim CAP payments for the full plant rather than only for seeds and stalks. The measure could unlock substantial financial support within the EU’s €55-billion annual farm budget, signalling that hemp is no longer a marginal crop but a legitimate component of the bio-based economy.

Still, policy coherence remains elusive. Regulations that promote sustainability coexist with those that penalise risk. Farmers are encouraged to diversify, yet confronted with legal ceilings that reduce flexibility. As Europe races to meet its Green Deal targets, the future of hemp will depend on whether policymakers can align incentives with biology—designing rules that reward good practice rather than punish natural variation.

For growers, the next harvest will be as much a test of legislation as of soil.