While hemp is infamous for it’s relation to cannabis, it’s most useful for its fiber and quick growth. From fabric to topicals to fuel to food, the fiber from hemp is processed into over 25,000 different products. As convenient and multi-functional as it is, the hemp industry was put on a 70+ year hold when federal legislation grouped it with cannabis and made the two illegal to grow in the late 1930’s; For a plant that contains less than .3% of THC it was an unfair and thoughtless move. However in 2014 the law changed and now Kentucky farmers are doing something about it.
Kentucky has always been big on farming; In 1775 they started growing their first hemp crops and when it became illegal, they started growing tobacco crops. Now with the decline of tobacco and the renewed legality of hemp, Kentucky grows almost a quarter of the 9,650 hemp acres within the US making it the 2nd top hemp producer nationwide. Within a year alone, Kentucky managed to start almost 1500 more acres of hemp from 2015 to 2016. A sign that Kentucky is well on it’s way to being a potential future leader in the hemp industry.
The tobacco industry and hemp industry have an obvious tie when it comes to the farmers who grow them. Tobacco failing as it has is leaving significant room for Kentucky farmers to grow hemp which a lot of these new hemp acres are grown in the recycled tobacco plant dirt. It’s a shame Kentucky still has no cannabis program for their residents; a booming hemp industry but nothing to show for a medicinal plant taking a large portion of the country by storm. With such a successful start with hemp, maybe this can open the door for Kentucky to have legal cannabis.
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