Source: patch.com
TSU and the state agriculture department are teaming up to research industrial uses for hemp.
NASHVILLE, TN -- In 2014, Tennessee joined a growing list of states that legalized industrial hemp by removing it from the definition of marijuana in the illegal drug schedule. The same year, the federal farm bill allowed for the plant to be cultivated in research partnerships between institutes of higher learning and state departments of agriculture.
Tennessee State University and the state agriculture department have launched that type of partnership to educate farmers about growing the plant, one of the first grown successfully in what is now the United States but long criminalized due to its association with marijuana. Under Tennessee law, industrial hemp can be grown by licensed farmers using certified seeds that produce plants containing a highly-limited level of THC, the compound that produces the high in marijuana.
Processors and farmers from across the country attended a weekend workshop at TSU.
"That's where we come in as research to make sure we've got the right varieties to plant, the right time to harvest and right gardens we can provide. The producers are also needing some in terms of selecting varieties, and planting time and harvesting time and all of that," TSU Dean of Agriculture Chandra Reddy told WKRN.
Hemp has a number of potential industrial uses from textile and fiber to home construction and even auto parts, the state agriculture department says. Prior to the change in federal law, American manufacturers were completely dependent on foreign producers like China, Russia and South Korea, which together produce 70 percent of the world's industrial hemp.
The state's processing pilot program has dozens of participants, which many focusing on extraction of oil, which can be sold legally provided it comes from industrial hemp. This came into sharp focus during Rutherford County's Operation Candy Crush, which resulted in 23 stores being padlocked and then all charges being dropped when the district attorney said lab tests from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation could not determine if the oil in the products came from legal industrial hemp or illegal marijuana plants.
Photo by Kacie Lynn via Tennessee Department of Agriculture
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