Following more than 40 years of research and millions invested (over $13 million since 1987 alone), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is all but dropping its support for kenaf as an alternative fiber resource. Mississippi State University remains the only USDA-funded kenaf project renewed this year by the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).
According to Noelie Bertoniere, acting national program leader for Fibers and Materials, a division of ARS, "Kenaf is going nowhere. It's just a waste of money. Farmers won't grow it unless they are guaranteed a market. There is not enough out there to run even one paper mill and no one will grow it without a market, so it's a chicken and egg situation." Others in the USDA who have been involved in kenaf research, such as Dan Kugler of the USDA's Cooperative State Research and Extension Service, find it "very disappointing that the USDA no longer has any formal program in kenaf R&D."
So does this mean the end for this struggling new crop? Not according to the private sector, which continues to have high hopes for the nonwood fiber. This year about 10,000 acres of kenaf will be harvested. A number of companies are processing kenaf into a variety of products, including industrial absorbents, animal bedding, specialty papers, molded plastics and erosion mats. If all the short-term plans of these companies come to pass, by the year 2000 we could see a capacity for processing over 230,000 tons of kenaf a year, the amount produced from about 40,000 acres.
Kenaf (pronounced kuh-NAFF) is a fast-growing annual plant that has been cultivated throughout the world as a source of fiber. Although it resembles sugarcane or hemp, kenaf is actually in the same family as okra and cotton. Domesticated as early as 4000 B.C. in eastern Africa, kenaf is now found predominately in southeast Asia and Central America. Kenaf research began in the U.S. in the 1950s as a result of WWII fiber shortages. When jute and abaca imports from Asia were cut off the USDA began a search for alternative fiber crops that could be grown domestically. By the 1970s, after examining over 500 species of annual plants, it concluded that kenaf was the most viable alternative fiber source for the pulp and paper industry.
USDA's early research in kenaf focused on answering basic research questions regarding the agronomics of the crop. Later research focused on breeding disease-resistant and higher yielding varieties. Later, the USDA concentrated on commercializing kenaf-derived products. This effort included papermaking trials at the ARS labs in Peoria, Illinois, and an investigation of kenaf for environmental remediation in Louisiana and California.
Kenaf thrives in southern climates, especially in the moist Gulf Coast states. The crop is typically planted in dense rows, producing anywhere from three to ten dry tons of raw fiber per acre, with an average yield of six tons per acre. Compared to southern pine, kenaf produces two to three times the fiber per acre. Kenaf has been grown in diverse areas in the U.S., including Wisconsin and California, but a long growing season is needed for high yields. The plant typically requires about 5 months to reach its maximum height of 12 to 18 feet.
Like other bast fiber crops such as hemp and flax, kenaf is comprised of two distinct fiber types: an outer bark composed of long, strong fibers and an inner woody core, composed of shorter fibers. The outer bark, called bast fibers, accounts for approximately one-third of the stalk's fibrous material by weight. The core fibers are highly absorbent and are being used primarily in industrial absorbent applications or as animal bedding. The bast fibers are used for papermaking and for making composites.
Kenaf is especially exciting as a fiber resource because it requires minimal maintenance. For example, kenaf can survive on about 4 to 5 inches of rainfall per month. It requires few or no herbicides, due to its quick germination and emergence. The dense canopy of leaves at the top of the plant chokes out weed growth. Kenaf needs about the same amount of fertilizer as upland cotton and less than what is typically required for corn. Most insect pests do not attack the fibrous plant stem, so insecticides are unnecessary.
Kenaf is an attractive feedstock for making pulp and paper. It requires less energy to pulp than trees and no bleaching agents, since the fibers are naturally white. The main obstacles to making kenaf an economical choice for paper are the harvesting, transportation and storage of the crop. With regard to storage, paper mills need to be guaranteed a continuous supply of fiber: this is true with a perennial crop like trees, but is more difficult to arrange with an annual fiber that must be cut and stored. Recently, Mississippi State has developed new storage technology that may solve the storage problem.
Bales of kenaf, typically about 500 pounds, are bulky and costly to transport long distances. Thus kenaf crops need to be located within a 50-mile radius of a processing plant, which then separates the bast and core fibers. Transforming bales of raw kenaf into cubes prior to shipping has improved the economics of transporting the material, but it's not certain that this technique will become commonplace.
Kenaf acreage in the U.S. has been on the rise. Roughly 3,000 acres were planted in 1994 and 1995; 6,000 acres in 1996; 9,000 acres in 1997; and roughly 10,000 acres this year. Earlier predictions from the USDA called for over 18,000 acres of kenaf to be planted this year, but that didn't happen. Problems in planting (mostly weather related), delays in construction and start-up of kenaf processing facilities, and an unstable market demand are the primary factors slowing the expansion of kenaf acreage.
Sorting fact from fiction in this industry is no easy task. There's talk of new kenaf plants springing up in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Arizona and California, but it is difficult to confirm the existence of any of these sites or the parties involved in their construction. Many people are closely watching the developments in the kenaf industry and others are anxiously awaiting funding or investments to enter this marketplace. One example is Arizona Fibers, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is looking to build its own separation facility for kenaf. According to President Michael Bowden, they are planning a 40,000-square-foot facility, with a capacity of approximately 5 tons per hour. They planted 400 acres of kenaf this year, but have yet to secure the $1.2 million needed to launch the project. The company hopes to market the bast fibers to the automotive industry for composites applications and make absorbents from the core.
Quite a bit of additional speculation is centered around the paper companies themselves, viewed by many as the missing link in the industry. According to University of Mississippi's Eugene Columbus, "Waiting for mainstream paper companies, such as International Paper or Weyerhaeuser, to produce their own line of 100 percent tree-free kenaf paper isn't what's going to make this industry take off. Kenaf is better utilized as a blend. If IP agreed to use kenaf at even a 5 percent blend, that would alone create such a demand for the fiber [due to the large volumes of paper that IP produces] that an infrastructure would be created." Smaller paper companies could then compete because they could share in the costs of the crop's production and processing. Columbus's ideas don't seem so far off when considering the problems small paper companies have had getting kenaf pulped at existing mills. Tom Rymsza, president of KP Products, produces and markets a line of 100 percent tree-free kenaf papers as well as kenaf paper blends. Rymsza used to pulp his paper with Ecusta, a large paper manufacturer with a mill in North Carolina, but Ecusta is no longer producing kenaf paper since it requires a volume of at least 100 tons per month. Unfortunately this is a greater volume than the kenaf paper market can support right now, forcing Rymsza to seek others to pulp his tree-free paper.
Crane and Co., based in Dalton, Massachusetts, appears to be the only major paper company committed to buying kenaf fiber. Crane makes a 50/50 blend of kenaf and cotton, just one of the tree-free papers marketed in their Continuum line, to be launched next spring. This line also contains papers made from blends of hemp, cotton and postconsumer waste paper. Crane expects to require approximately 12.5 tons per month of kenaf fiber to supply this line. The kenaf fiber for their line will be supplied primarily by KenGro Corporation.
International Paper (IP) planted approximately 2,000 acres of kenaf last year in Texas. Initial kenaf blend test runs by IP reportedly produced an acceptable quality paper. However, due to harvesting difficulties, this year IP is planting only about 400 acres in test plots under the supervision of Mississippi State University. The purpose of these test plots is to ensure kenaf yields are high enough to make the fiber an economical alternative to virgin wood.
For some products, kenaf is competitive. In the paper sector, kenaf appears competitive for specialty papers, which is why Crane is expanding its kenaf blended paper but IP remains uncommitted. Crane is targeting specialty paper markets, a niche that commands higher prices. IP, on the other hand, makes commodity grade papers and is seeking a fiber source that directly competes with wood pulp. Crane's 50/50 blend of kenaf and cotton 80-pound text writing paper sells for $335 per thousand sheets, while the same quantity and type of paper made entirely from virgin wood ranges from $125 to $200.
With regard to absorbents, kenaf is not only price competitive but exhibits superior performance due to the high absorbency of its core fibers. According to representatives of Petroexx, its industrial absorbent (Kenaf 2000R) is a much better buy than traditional absorbents, such as clay. To absorb one barrel of oil requires 600 pounds of clay but only 25 pounds of Kenaf 2000R. Granulated clay costs $0.11/lb and Kenaf 2000R sells for $1.43/lb: thus it's nearly twice as expensive to use clay. Furthermore, once saturated with oil, Kenaf 2000R can either be incinerated for fuel or composted. Clay, on the other hand, is typically landfilled.
Kenaf also appears to be an economical, competitive, low-weight alternative to fiberglass. Using natural fibers to reinforce polypropylene-based composites also makes the automotive part easier to recycle, a feature in high demand in both European and North American markets.
The jury's still out. The USDA is pessimistic. The private sector is optimistic. But the key challenge for any new crop is how to overcome the chicken and egg dilemma. Entrepreneurs need to persuade industrial customers to purchase the product but those industrial customers who are convinced want large volumes and that requires convincing farmers to rapidly expand the supply.
Some say that this should have been the USDA's next step. Instead of all but abandoning kenaf, after more than 40 years of research and at the point where the crop is on the verge of becoming commercial, the USDA could have helped short-circuit the chicken and egg problem. Many industry players believe there is a need for public funding for continued crop development research and to help build an infrastructure for processing and manufacturing the crop. Others see government as an obstacle to commercialization and prefer that it get out of the business altogether.
Just as opinions vary within the kenaf industry over further involvement by the USDA, so do explanations for the abandonment of kenaf research. According to Dr. John Sij of the Texas Agricultural Experimentation Station, a representative for the American Kenaf Society, "Kenaf is lacking a champion. Kenaf was allowed to be cut from USDA's budgets because nobody was there to fight for it."
No matter what the reason, USDA withdrawal of kenaf support leaves the federal government in the situation of funding no significant tree-free paper activities for 1999, while our neighbors to the north are bringing in their first crop of industrial hemp. Private companies aren't the only ones convinced that there's a market for nonwood fibers, but they are the only ones who can get kenaf off the fence.
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