Hemp market ripe for picking

By Pamela Dickman
Source: reporterherald.com

LOVELAND -- Shaun Crew's company is the biggest processor of industrial hemp in Canada, and his leading product is protein powder.

Hemp Oil Canada also supplies hemp oil, seeds and more for cereal, salad dressings, cooking products, baked goods, soaps and lotions.

"Milk," salad dressings, paint, cloth, rope, packaging supplies, chewing tobacco alternative and yarn lengthen the list of products that boost the $500 million hemp industry -- a venture Colorado is on the verge of joining.

"When I see hemp, I see an alternative crop," said Kent Peppler, Mead farmer and president of the Rocky Mountain Farmer's Union, at an industrial hemp symposium Thursday at The Ranch in Loveland.

"I see a crop that doesn't use fertilizer. I see a crop that doesn't need a great deal of water. I see a crop that has multiple uses."

All those factors make hemp a potential cash crop and alternative for Colorado farmers as state voters just legalized the production with Amendment 64.

Lawmakers are in the midst of crafting regulations for the industry many say is wrongfully lumped with marijuana, just as it was in Amendment 64.

Both industrial hemp and recreational marijuana are now legal under Colorado law, but both remain illegal under federal statute that lists them as controlled substances.

Lawmakers, hemp proponents and farmers unions are lobbying to remove industrial hemp from that list because it is not potent enough to be used as a drug and is instead on the cutting edge of the health food and nutrition industry.

"This has nothing to do with the wild cousin," said Crew, one of about 10 speakers at the symposium. "This is all about health and nutrition."

Already, the products made from hemp number in the thousands, and the possibilities are growing as is the industry. Crew said production and demand has increased 25 percent to 45 percent per year for the past 10 years and is expected to double in the next 12-18 months.

Now is the prime time to lead the way for hemp production in the United States, noted Colorado Sen. Gail Schwartz, who is on the committee creating oversight for Colorado agricultural hemp production.

"Colorado is going to be making history ... We are interested in putting Colorado on the map and producing food and fiber."