Source: durangoherald.com
Colorado voters may have legalized the growing of hemp in 2012, but there are a lot of obstacles in the way before it becomes a viable crop for area farmers.
James McVaney of Industrial Hemp in Colorado launched a 10-city Farmers Talks tour over the weekend to examine and discuss draft regulations prepared by the Colorado Department of Agriculture on the future of industrial hemp operations in the state.
On Monday night, he visited Durango to acquaint farmers with the possibilities and challenges of the industrial hemp market, which include everything from legalities to processing and market development.
“The feds are waiting to see what we do before they adjust their regulations,” he said. “The thing to remember is hemp is not marijuana.”
Genetically similar to marijuana, industrial hemp contains less than 0.3 percent of the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Hemp can be used to produce a multitude of products, including nutritional foods, biofuels, clothing fibers and building materials.
“They're the same species,” McVaney said, “but dogs are a species, too, and there's a lot of difference between Rottweilers and Chihuahuas. You can make almost anything but glass from hemp.”
McVaney had visited Cortez on Sunday, where about three-dozen area farmers attended the meeting, many hoping this crop might revive the biofuel plant near Dove Creek that is now in foreclosure.
Only seven people attended the meeting at Durango Public Library, including La Plata County Commissioner Julie Westendorff. The lower attendance might have had something to do with the high land values here, which might make hemp less profitable to grow, McVaney said.
“I would like the clarity on hemp that we have on marijuana,” Westendorff said. “I talked to the U.S. attorney, and he said that if someone was growing 5,000 hemp plants he'd be interested, and if they were growing 10,000 hemp plants, he'd be very interested.”
In late August, the U.S. Justice Department issued a memo stating that the federal government would not interfere with state laws regulating cannabis sativa. The measure prompted Industrial Hemp in Colorado officials to lobby farmers to once again grow the environmentally friendly crop.
One big challenge is getting the seed to plant hemp. It's illegal to ship hemp seeds that have not been irradiated into the United States, but irradiation eliminates the use of the seeds for growing crops.
McVaney told the Cortez group that if they wished to grow hemp, they would be forced to “cross a gray legal line” in order to obtain the needed seeds. He urged them to contact the Colorado Department of Agriculture to voice their concerns over access to seeds.
Attendees at the Durango meeting said the biggest business opportunity from hemp might be in developing and supplying seeds to other growers. Nurturing seed stock that would thrive in Colorado's climate would probably take from two to four years.
Lu Nettleton, owner of Diamante Farm in Cortez, said the climate on the Colorado Plateau creates the perfect environmental conditions needed to successfully grow hemp on a commercial level.
“We're poised to have a rural renaissance based on this one crop,” he said.
The overall U.S. market for industrial hemp fiber and seed products is currently estimated at $400 million a year. McVaney thinks that could explode if it becomes legal to ship hemp-based products across state lines.
“I've been talking to the offices of both Sen. Udall and Sen. Bennet,” Westendorff said. “I told them, 'Don't look at this as a little thing. This is potentially a big thing for Colorado.'”
She's particularly interested in the jobs that might come from processing hemp.
“This isn't like hay where you just grow it and sell it to someone else,” she said. “This has the possibility of jobs in manufacturing after the hemp is harvested.”
Cortez Journal Staff Writer Tobie Baker contributed to this report.
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