The Future of Hemp: Meet the Cuevas Twins
Noemy and Abigail Cuevas pose in the experimental hemp field in California. Photo courtesy of A. Cuevas.
By Sarah Derouin
If you are looking for the next big names in hemp, look no further than the Los Angeles-based “Hemp Twins,” Abigail and Noemy Cuevas. From tackling the housing crisis, to leading the way for LA’s Social Equity cannabis licenses, to creating sustainable building materials, the sisters are leaders in the hemp industry as well as their community.
The sisters have also jumped into the cannabis market, with plans to open their own store in Venice Beach. They applied for a cannabis dispensary license under the Social Equity program in Los Angeles. Abigail Cuevas explained this program is specifically for zip codes where a disproportionate number of people have been impacted by the continued war on drugs.
The Hemp Twins story began while the sisters were students at Los Angeles Trade Technical College (LATTC). While learning about new sustainable building materials in their architecture classes, the twins heard some dire statistics about the homeless crisis in Los Angeles. Even their fellow students were suffering from housing and food insecurity.
“That was very touching to us,” Abigail Cuevas told HempBuild Mag, adding that it kickstarted their foray into hemp-centric architecture. “We were trying to design accessory dwelling units (ADUs)… and that’s when we came across hempcrete.”
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Some pioneers in the hempcrete industry, including the late Dion Markgraaff, an early founder of the U.s. Hemp Building Association, visited their campus. Cuevas said that Markgraaff became one of their mentors for their budding interest in many uses of hemp.
“Hemp gets into everything: clothes, fashion, health, construction, automobile construction,” notes Abigail.
Their interest in hemp was heightened by their cannabis appreciation and their devotion to social justice issues. As they learned more about hemp, they decided to form the Industrial Hemp Alliance (IHA) at their college. Abigail admitted there was a resistance at first from the student organization representatives. Apparently, some people were concerned that IHA was about “getting the campus high,” said Cuevas.
That, of course, was not the goal of IHA. But instead of being defensive, the Cuevas sisters took it as a chance to educate. “They realized that we didn’t speak about marijuana, we just like hemp. We want to do this for housing—there’s building materials that people don’t know about.”
They explained to the administration that hemp was a wonder material—great for building, fashion, body care, automobiles—and they were convincing. The group was accepted and the sisters wasted no time in starting their outreach efforts. “We were the first organization that was really big on our campus and made a difference and an impact,” said Cuevas.
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Their group was multi-language (English, Spanish and ASL) and immersed itself into the community. “We were doing educational workshops, we were doing cooking demos, we were having massages, handing out free hemp seeds and milk—we were really getting hemp known into our community and especially on our college campus.”
Under construction: with hemp
One of the outreach programs the IHA started was building demos for contractors, especially focusing on hempcrete.
Cuevas noted that an upcoming training in San Diego will be both in-person and online. “We're going to teach people, in person, how to create a mixture, and then we're going to have professionals from the US Hemp Building Association be on a zoom call, to give the facts and the details if people have any other questions,” she said.
Hemp-derived building materials from hempcrete to HempWool for insulation, are not just for new construction. Cuevas said the materials can be used to retrofit older homes that have outdated, toxic materials within their walls and rafters.
Recently, the Cuevas sisters and others in the hemp community got together and built a Hemp Temple in San Diego. The Temple was the brain-child of Markgraaff. “His dream was to build that, so whenever someone passed on to a better life they have their last smoke out,” she explained. They completed the building in March and the inaugural tribute was to Markgraaff.
The Hemp Temple was the brain-child of the late Dion Markgraaff. He wanted a building made with hemp, using I-beam construction (for sustainable, low wood use) as a space where people could gather to celebrate the life of loved ones with a last “smoke out”. Photo courtesy of A. Cuevas.
The Value of Hemp Agriculture
Cuevas said they are working with researchers on a new hemp farm in California that is growing plants for fibers and CBD. The farm is testing five different varieties of seeds to see which is the most viable.
But hemp farming is reaching across the border. Cuevas has been traveling to Mexico to see if hemp could be a viable crop for farmers. “We’re trying to duplicate the same thing we’re doing here [in California] in Mexico,” she notes. Cuevas explains that providing a fair, economic crop for Mexicans is important to them. “Our family is Mexican, so we know what it is to suffer and live in a poor place,” she said. Her goal is to make sure that any Mexican farmers are treated well and are not exploited by bigger companies swooping in and taking the bulk of the profits.
One of the biggest hurdles to growing hemp is legislation, she said. Like the U.S., Mexico has hemp and cannabis in the same category. “We’re trying to get them to separate marijuana and hemp because the medical uses and industrial uses are two separate things.”
Part of their work in Mexico is education. “Most people in Mexico only know about medical use,” Cuevas explained. “We’re coming in and saying, ‘Hey, you can make money, you can help the world, you can help the economy and start producing more jobs’,” all with hemp crops.
Back in California, they have been monitoring the test crops and should have more information soon. On a recent trip, the twins took drone footage of the field and noted that the plants were about 15 feet high.
Hemp and Cannabis are Social Justice Issues
The Cuevas sisters are involved in the Social Impact Center, a nonprofit organization that helps marginalized communities. The group provides educational programming centered on harm reduction, equity, and transformative justice. Part of that harm reduction is about reducing the incarceration of BIPOC for drug offenses. Abigail and Noemy are young leader fellows with that organization.
They are also working on expungement work, including efforts with National Expungement Week. “A lot of cannabis convictions were occurring and a lot of people here in California are still in jail,” Cuevas said. She noted that while some big corporations have moved to California to set up shop, “some of our people that were trying to do the same thing are in jail. That’s injustice.”
“Once a month, we do an event to help people who need legal services to come and get their record expunged,” she explained. But their social justice work goes beyond legal services. “We do food distributions and help them with housing resources, getting their license, or childcare.”
Their commitment to hemp will carry over to the Venice Beach dispensary too—the sisters plan to use as many hemp building materials as possible, they hope to use sustainable hemp-packaging, and they want to include hemp items for sale in the dispensary.
The Future of Hemp
“Hemp products—honestly, it’s going to be the next big thing,” said Cuevas, adding that she hopes the industry stays in “good hands with people with good hearts.”
She said that the future of hemp starts means beginning education efforts with younger people. She said some folks have an “old school mentality” and think about hemp and cannabis being put into a harmful drug category, but that’s not the case.
Hemp is “bringing people back to our roots, back to our ancestry,” she noted, adding that many materials in the past (from paper to parachute webbing) were made from hemp.
Cuevas and her sister are advocating for hemp to be a part of mainstream life, not just a temporary solution. “One quote that my sister and I always say, “We’re trying to hemp up the world, one Hempster at a time.’”
“There are really good people in this world that are trying to do good,” she noted. “The products that are going to come, the things that are going to be made… the people who are doing the agriculture and the cultivation of the hemp—honestly I just think everybody should be doing it.”
Michigan-based Sarah Derouin is a geologist and science writer and editor and contributor to the Big Picture Science radio show.
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