Vermont Farmers Could Grow Hemp this Year

By Thomas H. Clarke 
Source: thedailychronic.net

MONTPELIER, VT — A bill that would make changes to Vermont’s law authorizing industrial hemp licenses could allow farmers in the Green Mountain State to grow hemp as early as July.

If passed, House Bill 490, would remove language requiring the Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets to wait until federal bans are lifted on hemp cultivation in the US before issuing licences for farmers to grow hemp.

The bill would authorize the Secretary to begin issuing licenses to grow industrial hemp pursuant to current Vermont statute as early as July 1, 2013.

“The State of Vermont recognizes industrial hemp as one of the 13 fastest growing and highest-yielding renewable biomasses known to man,” reads the bill, adding that the plant has been continuously cultivated for over 12,000 years.

The bill has been assigned to the House Agriculture and Forest Products Committee.

Cultivation of industrial hemp is currently prohibited by the federal government, but legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow the commercial production of hemp in the United States, the only industrialized nation in the world to prohibit the cultivation of hemp.

Hemp products can legally be sold in the United States, but the hemp must be imported from other countries.