Oregon’s industrial hemp growers look for solid ground

By Eric Mortenson
Source: capitalpress.com


Young hemp plants are ready for transplanting. Oregon has issued 
13 licenses to grow industrial hemp.

Industrial hemp is off to a slow start, and the Oregon Legislature may throw up more hurdles, but growers are optimistic.

Cliff Thomason’s goal is to be growing 10,000 acres of industrial hemp in five years. But right now he’s dealing with opposition from medical marijuana growers and Oregon legislators.

Thomason is among the first growers licensed by the state to raise hemp, which lacks the THC levels that gets pot smokers high but is valued because it can be used to make a wide variety of food, health and fiber products.

Thomason’s Oregon Hemp Co. has grow operations in Murphy and near Grants Pass, in Southwest Oregon, and he is negotiating to sharecrop space on an organic farm near Scio, in the Willamette Valley.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has issued 13 hemp licenses, but it’s unclear how many growers have a crop in the ground this summer.

Thomason said growers are hampered by infrastructure and political problems. First, it’s difficult to obtain seed, although Thomason said he has seed from China, Lithuania, Slovakia and Germany. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said.

The Oregon Legislature is another matter. Medical marijuana growers in Southern Oregon believe pollen from industrial hemp will contaminate their potent pot and reduce THC levels. A bill in the Legislature would force a 5-mile separation between hemp and pot growers.

Hemp growers say that would essentially prohibit them from growing, because so many pot plots fill the area.

Thomason said he’s trying to be a good neighbor by keeping pollen-bearing male hemp plants in greenhouses and transplanting only females outdoors.

“I keep saying that with responsible farming practices, it will regulate itself,” he said.

Thomason described himself as “truly an accidental farmer” who was asked to help find seed and land for the hemp industry because of his real estate background.

“When I did, we formed a company to move the project forward,” he said.

He said his plants are growing rapidly and are intended for the medical market. The German seeds seem to do the best, perhaps because its climate is similar to Oregon’s, he said.

The other licenses issued so far are:

27B Stroke6 Farm, Corvallis; American Hemp Seed Genetics, Salem; Cannalive Organics, Yamhill County; Central Coast Enterprises, Seal Rock; Genesis Media Works, Baker County; Hemp for Victory Gardens, Wilsonville; Hughes Farms LLC, Bend; Integrative Health Source, Corvallis; Mark McKay Farms, St. Paul; Oregon Agriculture Food and Rural Consortium, Eagle Point; Went to Seed LLC., Bend; and Wildhorse Creek Hacienda, Adams.