LEXINGTON — A morning stroll through Kentucky’s first legal industrial hemp crop in almost 80 years led to discussion about the plant’s Kentucky future at a state legislative meeting Friday.
Members of the General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Agriculture were accompanied by University of Kentucky agriculture experts at the industrial hemp field, located on UK’s research property off Ironworks Pike in Fayette County. The hemp plot—one of five university-based pilot research plots in the Kentucky—was planted after the passage of 2013 Senate Bill 50 (sponsored by the Agriculture Committee’s co-chair Sen. Paul Hornback, R-Shelbyville and Senate Majority Caucus Chair Sen. Dan Seum, R-Louisville) and the 2014 U.S. Farm Bill, which allows industrial hemp production for research and development only in certain states.
Kentucky farmer Andy Graves told lawmakers later at the committee’s meeting at the E.S. Good Barn on UK’s central campus that, “for this group to say they visited a hemp field is really nice.” Graves explained that hemp can also be quite profitable should it be legalized for commercial production, like it is in Canada.
The Alberta (Canada) Agriculture and Rural Development agency reports that estimated gross revenue for Canada’s hemp seed production in 2011 translated “to estimated gross revenue of between $30.75 million and $34.17 million” or between $990 and $1,100 per acre.
Graves said Kentucky is working “in a positive direction” toward getting the infrastructure needed for commercial industrial hemp growth here, adding that growth of hemp seed in the Commonwealth is “very viable.”
Hemp’s profitability is its fiber and its seed, which Graves said is used to make both hemp oil and hemp seed cake – the latter which he said is very high in protein and used in both human and animal feed.
According to some statistics, 75 percent of the seed produced in Canada is exported to the U.S. today.
Before hearing from several UK Agriculture officials, UK President Dr. Eli Capilouto spoke to the committee about the university’s successes and needs for the future—including what he explained as the need for a multidisciplinary research building. Without one, Dr. Capilouto said UK is “saying no to too many (opportunities).”
Co-Chair Hornback responded from an agriculture standpoint, saying “it’s not just about production agriculture anymore” but that “it’s about research and development.”
His comments were followed by those of fellow Committee Co-Chair Rep. Tom McKee, D-Cynthiana. “We appreciate your commitment to agriculture (in Kentucky),” McKee told the university head.
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