Source: theleafonline.com
The January 2018 Industrial Hemp Advisory Board meeting in Sacramento was broadcast using streaming media.
“It’s been 14 months since Prop. 64 passed,” said one frustrated potential hemp farmer. “Adult use marijuana stores are open around the state and yet we don’t even have a clear process to get hemp seed in the ground. This Board needs to step up.”
The sentiment was widespread among participants at the California Department of Food and Agriculture‘s January 18 Industrial Hemp Advisory Board meeting in Sacramento.
Unfortunately, the Board can only do so much. It is an advisory board that can make recommendations but cannot set timelines or official policies.
California behind the curve
Much of the day’s discussion had to do with streamlining the processes to make hemp production economically viable. Attendees at the event urged the Board to look at successful programs in Colorado, Kentucky and other states, rather than reinvent the wheel.
Fiber hemp looks very different than marijuana crops. Photo by Chris Conrad.
Projects that are affiliated with institutions of higher education or an established agricultural research institution are exempted from a number of licensing requirements
Simple questions need to resolved, like who registers seed lines, can farmers or industrialists oversee their own field potency testing or must that be done by the state or county, how much will implementation cost, and on and on.
The California Hemp Association is working to help people navigate that process with its California Hemp Foundation.
Hefty registration and administration fees
Not only are there no registered hemp seed lines for farmers, there is no set list of fees that may be accrued and there are multiple jurisdictions involved. The Board has approved a biannual $1000 registration fee, but the question of inspections, testing and possible destruction of crops that exceed the 0.3 percent THC limit on the crop remain open ended.
Hemp seed is valued for its nutritional value as well as the high quality of oil it produces.
Ironically, the hangup for California hemp farming seems to be a fear of marijuana, hence the requirement that dried cannabis flowers from the crop have no more than 0.3 percent THC content. However, the cost of jumping through all the hoops puts a major financial burden on hemp farmers.
The state Bureau of Cannabis Control, which oversees “marijuana,” has over 100 people working on their process but the CDFA simply tacked industrial hemp onto the assignments of two employees who work on other agricultural issues, as well.
Multitude of jurisdictions and hoops
Since the state law tried to be vague enough to allow flexibility, that same ambiguity has come back to bite the hemp industry from behind. The definition in the law only refers to fiber and grain production, whereas the biggest market at the moment is for use for cannabidiol (CBD). Cannabinoid extraction is not discussed in the law, but since they are intended for human production those crops would likely be regulated as grain crops for purposes of pesticide use and “organic” certifications.
IHAB members were drawn from agriculture, industry, regulatory agencies, law enforcement and community advocates.
Another key issue facing growers is the layered mix of jurisdictions involved in the oversight process. The legislature passed its original, unworkable hemp law in 2013.
The California Constitution lets local governments control land use, but law enforcement is often a renegade institution. The federal government added low-THC hemp to the Farm Bill in 2014. The federal DEA has assumed a role in regulating hemp seedlines.
California voters jumped in in 2016 with Proposition 64 to reduce regulations, create the advisory board and give control to the CDFA. The state legislature can make only limited modifications, farmers are required to partner with college and university agricultural departments, county agriculture agencies and even county supervisors can insert themselves into the process.
Law enforcement bias, county cannaphobia
Law enforcement often takes the approach of arrest everyone and let the courts sort it out.
Not only has law enforcement traditionally been hostile to hemp farmers — remember that the prohibition of hemp in 1937 shut down the domestic family farm-based hemp industry — medical marijuana and adult use of marijuana have both been hampered by the hostility of local officials and the NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitudes of county supervisors and staff.
An attorney speaking for a group of investors told how they had gone through the approval process, even getting DEA approved seeds, put the crop in the ground and then San Joaquin law enforcement decided on its own to destroy the hemp crop because they “couldn’t tell whether it was hemp or marijuana.” At a hearing, those same officials admitted that the crop had been tested and the test showed it to be hemp, so now the county is being sued.
“Many of these are the same individuals who have fought for years to keep sick and dying people from getting cannabis medicine,” commented one spectator. “You expect them to give a damn about farmers?”
Chris Conrad’s latest book is a great introduction to cannabis, how it affects you and how the industry is taking shape.
What we know now
If people want to get hemp seed in the ground now, there are no clear indications of how it will work except that the crop needs to be affiliated with an institution of higher learning or an established agricultural research institute, the crop has to be registered low-THC and tested during the flowering cycle and having local support is key to a successful outcome.
All of this begs the question of getting wholesale purchasers and successfully bringing new hemp products to market.
For information on past and future meetings, use this link.
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