Author Adam Hart promotes power of plant-based proteins to combat depression

By Charlie Smith
Source: straight.com


Self-described “digestitarian” Adam Hart says that healing himself with natural foods gave him a passion for teaching others to do the same.

Author and chef Adam Hart describes himself as a “digestitarian”. In a phone interview with the Georgia Straight, the Squamish-based nutritional researcher said he bases his diet around which foods are easiest on his gut. And he maintained that this has given him a tremendous boost in energy.

Hart included several tips on how to incorporate hemp into different foods and beverages in his 2013 book, The Power of Food: 100 Essential Recipes for Abundant Health and Happiness. And he claimed that anyone who consumes hemp seeds three times a day over a seven-day period will likely notice a significant increase in energy level. That’s because hemp seeds are a complete source of protein, rich in essential amino and fatty acids. According to Hart, they’re also not nearly as heavy as meat, which is loaded with protein.“The first step is to think about what it means to become a digestitarian,” Hart advised. “You have to stabilize your blood sugar on a daily basis using natural, plant-based foods. The number one food that I’ve done that with is hemp seeds. I start off by adding in a tablespoon of hemp seeds at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Excessive amounts of protein are hard to digest,” Hart said. “One, it creates acidity, but two, it also zaps your energy. All the energy in your digestive system is going to break that down.”

The Power of Food shows how to include hemp seeds in snacks.

He wasn’t always slim, and he didn’t always focus on his diet. Growing up in Toronto in the 1970s and ’80s, Hart ate foods filled with sugar. At the age of 13, he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was put on medication. He said that several years later, while attending university, he worked in a pizza restaurant where he had “unlimited access” to what was made in the kitchen.

“That was a time when my health started to take a turn,” he recalled. “I was diagnosed as prediabetic and had high cholesterol. I was about 50 pounds overweight and had severe food allergies.”

By the time he was 25, he said, he was also suffering from depression and anxiety, for which he was given more medication. On his website, Hart reveals that he spent sleepless nights crying in bed. His life finally began to turn around when he discovered the joy of indoor rock-climbing in Toronto.

“I began to get addicted to the feeling it was giving me,” he said. “I realized many years later that it was my form of meditation. The only time that I was not in a depressed state was when I was climbing.”

Fearing that his corporate job in Toronto was leading to occupational burnout, Hart moved to Golden, B.C., which has a reputation as an outdoor-recreation mecca. He said he trained to become a mountain guide but soon realized how poorly he had been eating. That’s when Hart began making subtle additions to his diet.

“I was learning how to stabilize my blood sugar for the first time ever,” he said.

With some changes, he noticed that his energy level perked up. He didn’t eliminate cookies, pop, and chocolate cake—he just gradually lost the cravings for these sugar bombs as he consumed more plant-based proteins. And as he discovered how he could heal with better food choices, he developed a passion for teaching others how to do this.

In 2003, Hart created his company, Power of Food, and he moved to Squamish in 2005 to be closer to Vancouver, where he could offer stress-management solutions to corporate clients. And he hasn’t entirely sworn off the foods he ate as a young man.

“I follow the 80/20 model,” he said. “Eighty percent of my food comes from nice, clean plant-based sources. But I still go to the bar with my friends and I’ll have a beer. I’ll eat pizza.”

A plant with purpose

All the attention is focused on marijuana policy reform, but its cousin, hemp, shines with promise for applications in sustainable building and numerous other beneficial applications

By Emily Peyton

Source: commonsnews.org

A hemp stem showing fibers.

MUCH MEDIA ADO about marijuana reminds me of media coverage of Donald Trump’s opponents: Hemp is a more worthy candidate for our attention, but it gets very little.

Marijuana is obviously very important to many, many people (beer is as well). But it needs to be said that marijuana hasn’t as much to offer Vermont as hemp.

For clarity’s sake, although the term “hemp” refers to all of cannabis, including marijuana, in recent years it has become common practice to term “cannabis” hemp that contains more than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the chemical compound responsible for marijuana’s psychoactive effects.

Hemp grows very tall, and if grown for fiber varieties, it can reach 12 to 15 feet high. It’s the second-fastest-growing plant on Earth, and it offers the strongest natural fiber.

The fiber varieties look a great deal like bamboo. In a properly tilled and fertilized field, these Cannabis sativa varieties yield 200 to 275 plants per square yard.

To our north, Canadians are growing hemp varieties primarily for seed. In terms of processing, hemp seed is the easiest way to access value from hemp. Hemp grown for seed stands anywhere from 8 to 10 feet in height and requires less poundage per acre to cultivate (20 pounds for seed hemp, 30 pounds for fiber varieties).

Hemp enjoys a well-tilled and fertilized bed, and it wants 12 to 14 weeks to mature. It will not ask for any pesticides, and its ability to grow fast and block sunlight cleans out the (other) weeds and increases your yield in subsequent plantings — whatever crop that might be. In one season, hemp will secure four times what the carbon-monoxide trees can in 20 years.

So, just as a toy poodle is a sort of condensed dog, marijuana has been bred for its concentration of THC. Hemp with only 0.3 percent THC and a higher percentage of non-psychoactive cannabadiols (CBDs) would be the dogs of a labrador size in this analogy.

Marijuana has a smaller bushy type of structure, anywhere from 2.5 feet to maybe 5 or 6 feet tall. To avoid reduction of the coveted THC levels that build up in female bud, it must be segregated from male plants and clear of any male pollinators.

Historically, law enforcement has made the argument that hemp should be prohibited because it looks like marijuana and people would be able to hide their marijuana in among a field of hemp. But any marijuana hidden in a field of hemp will soon become hemp itself because of its proximity to male hemp plants. So that argument is a totally based on a false premise.

Medicinally, hemp offers healing properties because of its CBDs, which work without giving the user the corresponding high that marijuana does from its THC.

Marijuana growers now breed THC strains for higher and higher levels of CBDs, which support a wide variety of positive health outcomes that include reduction of soft-tissue-cancer reduction, reduction of arthritis, and reduction of anxiety and (most notably) seizures.

CBD is the most predominate cannabanoid of 113 of these chemical compounds available in hemp. Everyone has an endocannabanoid system — in essence, the wireless system of our bodies sending signals from one place to another — in their body which copes with transportation of information from nerve ending to nerve ending.

Cannabis provides plant-based cannabinoids to bolster our own cannabinoid production. It’s important to note that a well-balanced omega-3 and -6 environment is needed for CBDs to effect their best healing.

With so much attention on fish oil as our source for these fatty acids, those concerned with heavy metals or radiation in fish oils have a hemp oil solution which offers a perfect balance of omegas 3 and 6 for humans.

Hemp seed is an excellent addition to livestock feed, increasing the protein content of milk. More and more baby boomers are seeking the healing available through hemp CBDs without the high of marijuana, but right now the price of CBDs is high because of demand and limited supply. In a few short years, an effective daily amount of CBDs (25–50 mgs a day ) might become more reasonable than current price of $130 to $200.

Let’s turn to how hemp shines for practicality.

• China corners the market for hemp textiles. Since cotton uses 25 percent of the world’s pesticides and hemp needs none, it is a truly important resource for our textile needs.

• Hemp is the strongest natural fiber on Earth; its uses for fabric, textiles, and fiberglass or metal replacement are endless.

• Demand for hemp fiber here and abroad is growing exponentially. China imports hemp fiber from France and other European countries, and they are excited to see our U.S. market gearing up to become another source.

Here in the USA, Colorado and Kentucky are the states diving most enthusiastically into hemp production. I hear Ford motor company is seeking all the fiber that Americans can grow to put in Ford cars because its lightweight strength is particularly useful for electric vehicles.

* * *

AT THE April NOCO hemp conference in Colorado, there was a palpable flavor of excitement in the air, for everyone feels the power of enormous growth that is building for hemp in the USA. My partner Tom Simon and I happily reunited with colleagues and made new connections at this latest conference.

Among 95 vendors were two companies using hemp in a 3-D printing process. Other hemp companies included ice cream (Iscream), burgers, chili and hummus, beer, snack companies, numerous medicinal hemp CBD companies, body-care companies, textile companies, hemp seed and farming equipment companies, hemp pet-care-product companies, hemp CBD vape companies, and hemp building companies.

There, we offered demonstration workshops just as we have done locally. We compared techniques and discussed projects. We toured a shiny, stainless-steel portable extractor that inhabited a 20-foot trailer valued at $400,000; a company growing hemp for medicine can arrange for an operator to use this device to extract the CBDs from their crop.

I spoke with people from a singular Colorado company that is putting in 50,000 acres of hemp this year. North Carolina is the setting for an enormous American hemp processing plant, expected to come online this year.

This plant has been built even before North Carolina legalized hemp!

There are four base products in hemp; hurd (the inner woody core of the plant used for construction), seed, fiber and — if you have a really marvelous processing plant —dust, which can be pelletized for heating.

Vermont doesn’t have $20 to 30 million for a new hemp processing plant. But Tom has been seeking affordable hemp-processing machines to serve Vermont-scale hemp farming. At this latest conference we made contact with a Colorado company offering a hemp processor for hurd that is affordable ($13,800 to $15,000) and portable.

With such a machine it will take 5 acres of hemp to provide enough hurd to build a 3,000-sq.-ft. house. The binder for building with hemp is a limestone, and with time and appropriate specialists, we might be able to regionally source the specific lime used for construction using this hempcrete.

* * *

TOM AND I are passionate about hempcrete construction and its delivery of a building envelope that’s more comfortable for air quality while healthier for its occupants (and building crew).

Hempcrete offers large savings in fuel and heating costs and offers still more savings due to its longevity. All the while, this substance sequesters carbon from the atmosphere as it turns to stone.

Not only will structures made with hempcrete stand for centuries (when most of our housing is replaced in 75 to 85 years), it also will never have mold, termites, or rodent infestation and it is virtually fireproof.

Vermont has an optimum construction solution available for the taking in hempcrete. Tom and I see that a hempcrete prototype would speak volumes to prove this concept for local green builders, so we are looking at a hempcrete addition to our existing home, complete with a light commercial kitchen to process hemp foods.

* * *

OUR STATE LEGISLATURE has, since 2013, given Vermonters the right to grow hemp with a simple $25 dollar registration, but our secretary of agriculture, Chuck Ross, remains unmoved as far as creating hemp seed importation with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

In my most recent conversations with Ross, he indicated that he once again isn’t planning to install the legal doorway that the federal government has provided for private farmers to import hemp seed in quantities that translate to acres of hemp fields in Vermont. The University of Vermont has obtained an import license, but UVM cannot share this seed with private farmers.

Meanwhile, across the nation, states are quietly passing hemp legislation. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has not yet signed on to S.134, the Industrial Hemp Act of 2015-2016, which removes hemp from drug classification. But he certainly should become a cosponsor of that legislation immediately to remove hemp from schedule one classification.

Meanwhile, marijuana enthusiasts are also among hemp’s detractors, though I do wish they would embrace hemp for all the reasons touched upon here. Cross pollination from nearby hemp is their issue.

But 1.5 miles between hemp and marijuana in our southern Vermont landscape (or 3 miles in our more open areas) is plenty of room to avoid cross pollination. However, cultivating marijuana for profit is an indoor endeavor under highly controlled settings, allowing for cultivation year-round.

There is more than enough room for marijuana and hemp in the same state, and both serve to improve our economy.

Hemp just serves our practical needs more.

* * *

I AM GROWING hemp from seed that I have saved from last year’s crop, and my seed stock increases each year. I have developed a couple of fresh hemp foodie items: hemp pesto and a blended hemp green smoothie. Judging by the heightened attention of mason bees to my hemp crop, it appears that CBD is something they also crave.

Hemp as a food product with its highest vegetable protein and perfectly balanced omega-3s and -6es will be expanding into the Vermont niche food system, sooner or later.

Hempcrete as a construction method will prove itself the new green gold standard. Hemp for fabric (combined with other natural fibers) will once again remind consumers of the joy of having a favorite clothing item that lasts forever.

Our John Deere tractors might one day in the near future be built using a hemp biocomposite.

So while its horticultural cousin is blowing up a storm of media attention, do keep your eye on hemp. It lives to let live, quietly outshining flamboyant marijuana.

Hemp plants return to Henry Clay’s Ashland estate

BY MICHAEL MCKAY

Source: kentucky.com


Mark Sizemore (left) and Richard Mundell with the Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center planted hemp Tuesday at Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate, for the first time in decades. Michael McKay mmckay@herald-leader.com

Hemp was planted Tuesday at Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate, for the first time in 130 years.

The hemp will be a permanent part of the estate and will be an educational tool, Ashland curator Eric Brooks said.

“There can be no doubt that hemp played a central role in Henry Clay’s life and that he was key to the Kentucky industry in the antebellum period,” Brooks said. At one time, hemp was one of the state’s top cash crops.

Hemp was banned from being grown without a federal permit by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act. Restrictions were loosened by the 2014 farm bill, which approved hemp to be grown for industrial research.

The planting was facilitated by the United Hemp Industries, the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation and the University of Kentucky through the university’s industrial hemp research program.

On June 11, the foundation will host Henry Clay’s hemp symposium, featuring historical speakers and an educational session about the hemp plants.

UK agronomist Rich Mundell, who helped to plant the hemp, said some of the seeds might sprout as early as Saturday.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article75366542.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article75366542.html#storylink=cpy

MAPP SIGNS NELSON’S HEMP BILL INTO LAW

By ERNICE GILBERT
Source: viconsortium.com


Sen. Nelson holds up a small canister containing a liquid form of medicinal marijuana during a May 2015 press conference held at the Curriculum Center located west of the St. Croix Central High School. The senator has said his ultimate goal in regards to marijuana — he will soon introduce a medicinal marijuana bill to the Senate — is to see the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in the territory.

ST. THOMAS — Governor Kenneth Mapp signed into law Senator Positive Nelson’s hemp bill on Tuesday, according to the governor’s transmittal letter to Senate President Neville James. The bill, after being indefinitely tabled in the Committee on Rules and Judiciary in February, was given a different number and a new lease of life and won the support of most senators at a late March session in the Earl B. Ottley Legislative Hall.

But the bill’s reach had been heavily restricted before it could pass the full Senate. It’s original intent was to allow for the cultivation of hemp as an industry in the territory, specifically St. Croix. But after dissenters voiced their concerns, chief among them Attorney General Claude Walker, Mr. Nelson was forced to scale back.

The new law is merely an authorization that allows the University of the Virgin Islands and the Department of Agriculture to conduct research to determine the viability of establishing a hemp industry in the territory. The measure also appropriates $75,000 to D.O.A. for this purpose. According to the new language, the other sections of the bill must wait for the U.S. Congress’ approval before any action based on the research’s results could be taken.

The bill, now No. 31-0330, was supported by senators Marvin Blyden, Myron Jackson, Clifford Graham, Tregenza Roack, Jean Forde, Kurt Vialet, Neville James, Almando “Rocky” Liburd, Mr. Nelson and Sammuel Sanes. Senators Nereida Rivera-O’Reilly, Janet Millin Young, Novelle Francis, Justin Harrigan, Sr. and Kenneth Gittens opposed the measure.

Dissenters had argued that the measure needed to be vetted as changes were made. But those in favor argued that the hemp industry bill had been heard on numerous occasions.

At the March session, Mrs. Millin Young, who chairs the Committee on Economic Development, Agriculture & Planning, would not relent in her opposition. “If there are different things to be discussed [about the new hemp bill], it should be discussed in the committee of jurisdiction,” she said. “I’m really big on process, I don’t pick on people because of who they are. I believe that I’m consistent in the way that I carry out my business.”

Even so, Senator Myron Jackson, who said he had proposed a similar measure in a prior Legislature, said it was time that the territory moved forward, and that the Virgin Islands was lagging behind other Caribbean islands that were speeding into the 21st Century.

“When are we going to sit on our own bottom? We have the ability to grow a product that is sustainable, and that can expand and diversify our economy,” Mr. Jackson said. “And as the world is evolving in different aspects, we too will evolve, but it shouldn’t be to our demise,” he later added.

Senator Nereida Rivera-O’Reilly, who has stringently opposed any measure having to do with marijuana or hemp, said there was no more fight left in her. “The fire in the belly, the desire to be a trailblazer to bring the house down, to inspire, to move people from one position to another, it’s gone. It’s been gone,” Mrs. Rivera-O’Reilly admitted.

My old Kentucky home: the 'Silicon Valley' of hemp

By Katherine Sproles
source: wkuherald.com

Past goats, grapevines, calves and corn sit small plots of tilled soil ready to be planted. In a few months, tucked at the back of this farm, rows of deep green plants — each with pointy, ribbed leaves — will reek of weed. Sun will soak tall stalks while researchers and students test the plants before tearing them down. They won’t be tearing down marijuana, though. They will be finishing their third year of researching hemp at the University Farm.

Small hemp plants grow inside a greenhouse on the WKU Ag Expo Center in Bowling Green, KY. Agronomy professor Todd Willian has been tending to these young plants alongside WKU students. 

The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not allow industrial hemp production, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. Eleven states have legalized the research of hemp, including Kentucky. Right now, the farm is preparing to plant what will be its third year of a five-year pilot program to study hemp in Kentucky called the Industrial Hemp Pilot Program.

Kentucky used to be a leader in hemp farming until this activity was made illegal. According to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, the state’s first hemp crop was grown in 1775, and it produced 40,000 tons of hemp by 1850.

The 1938 Controlled Substances Act outlawed hemp, along with marijuana, in the U.S. Moreover, the production of hemp isn’t controlled by the Department of Agriculture but by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

While the plant is of the same cannabis sativa species as marijuana, hemp plants have very little tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is the chemical that produces a high. THC levels in marijuana average “about 10 percent” while hemp holds less than 1 percent THC, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. There is not enough of the chemical for people to use hemp as a psychoactive drug.

At the farm, agronomy professor Todd Willian rubs a baby plant leaf between his fingers and to see if any cannabis smell will be produced. Willian specializes in the study of plants at WKU and helps supervise students and researchers who work with the crops. He admits the only way people can distinguish between hemp and marijuana is to test the plant for its THC content. In the U.S., less than 0.3 percent is considered hemp, and anything more than that is marijuana.

Willian said another common misconception is that hemp crops can be a place for people to hide marijuana. When marijuana and hemp are planted close together, the cross pollination ruins the THC content in marijuana, making it useless as a drug.

Research came at a convenient time just 10 years after the Senate approved the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco at the protest of Kentucky and surrounding lawmakers. This regulation, passed in 2004, ended price supports still in place from the Depression and forced growers to sell tobacco at whatever cost they could get. The incentive for Kentucky lawmakers was a $12 billion buyout to aid farmers struggling from the decrease in economic demand for tobacco products. This downturn stemmed from increased taxes on tobacco that dissuaded the public from buying due to health concerns.

In 2013, farmers only had one year left before the subsidy ran out, and to many hemp seemed like the solution for revitalizing farming in Kentucky. 

That year Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Mitch McConnell, with the help of two senators from Oregon, introduced the Industrial Hemp Farming Act, which would remove hemp from the federal list of controlled substances.

In a 2013 Frankfort hearing, Paul told lawmakers that Kentucky hemp consumers “are exporting our profit to Canada,” according to Politico. “I see no reason we wouldn’t want to be a leader on this,” he said.

Canada is one of the U.S.’s major suppliers of hemp. In 2011, Canada’s hemp exports exceeded more than $10 million with the majority of product going to the U.S.

Opposition to this legislation came from inside the commonwealth. U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky and Kentucky State Police, two major opponents, argued that law enforcement would be unable to tell hemp and marijuana apart because the plants are so similar.

While the Industrial Hemp Farming Act is still in consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee, McConnell pushed further in 2013 for a provision to be added to the Farm Bill that would allow for research on hemp production. That provision passed in 2014, and that year WKU started research with other Kentucky universities.

It hasn’t been easy, though, for the state to regain growing hemp. When the pilot program began, the state bought 250 pounds of hemp seeds from Italy. The DEA seized the shipment of seeds, forcing the Kentucky Department of Agriculture to sue by citing the 2014 Farm Bill. The Department of Agriculture was compelled by the DEA to apply for a controlled substances permit, which was later granted, and the seeds were returned.

Today, small plots of dark brown dirt are waiting for warmer weather before the hemp can be planted. 2016 is the first year researchers have been able to plant this early in the season with sufficient rain for the crop to flourish. This year, WKU is one of eight Kentucky universities in the program.

A small greenhouse now holds about 30 potted hemp plants that in their youth look more like mint than cannabis. These plants are used to test the effects of herbicide on hemp, which has presented mixed results in the past. In a few months, their sister crop will be almost 15 feet tall and will look and smell identical to hemp’s marijuana counterpart. The crops will grow for a few months and then be harvested in the fall. The researchers will then test the crops for fiber content and other benchmarks before discarding the plants. This research is shared with other universities and made public for farmers and growers to learn how best to grow hemp in a climate like Kentucky’s.

Willian said while they can successfully gather data in the five-year time span allotted, 10 years would be a better period of data for growers to reference, and hemp’s legalization would be the biggest advantage since most crop research is federally funded.

“One of the big questions we have is ‘What variety can you grow?’” he said. “With any crop, you have varieties that do better with certain needs and certain climates, and we are just now getting research on that.”

While the farm has done plenty of research with the stalks and seeds of its hemp plants, Willian said it has yet to really research the chemical cannabidiol, or CBD, which he believes might be a way for Kentucky to turn hemp into a major crop.

CBD, unlike THC, is not psychoactive and is being tested more and more as a potential new medicine. In a 2013, the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology published a review stating that studies showed CBD could be used to treat depression, anxiety, epilepsy and psychosis disorders and could prevent tumors and cancerous cells.

Farmers like Josh Hendrix are looking to prove that there is a market for hemp in Kentucky, which hasn’t legally grown the plant in more than 70 years. While universities like WKU have the ability only to research the plant, farmers like Hendrix have the ability to market and sell their crops.

Everyone thinks it's cool that Kentucky is leading the way in something. We can kind of be the Silicon Valley for this.

“The most common misconception is that this industry exists,” Hendrix said. “We are creating the domestic industry. There are companies out there that make hemp products; they just don’t use domestic hemp yet.”

Hendrix is the president of Hendrix Hemp, a farm licensed by the Department of Agriculture to research growing and marketing hemp. Hemp lured Hendrix back into Kentucky in 2014 when the Farm Bill passed. He had heard of hemp in college and was intrigued to take over his grandfather’s farm.

Hendrix said Kentucky hemp production is in the early stages of what may be a multidecade project in the way that it took farmers years to perfect tobacco growing. An even bigger struggle is that the variety of hemp grown here in the early 1890s, when farmers were familiar with the crop, no longer exists.

“No one is saying this is 100 percent going to work, but there is potential,” Hendrix said. “We don’t know if we are going to make money at this.”

Hendrix said hemp has caused younger generations to become interested in farming again — notable, considering that the average age of a farmer in America is 59.

Marijuana is currently Kentucky’s No. 1 cash crop and outsells traditional tobacco, which comes in second, according to the Appalachia High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.

Research, Hendrix said, is critical for farmers to make hemp a staple of the Kentucky economy.

“WKU is so important because their research is public information for farmers in the future and now,” he said.

Hemp re-emerging in Kentucky has had surprising effects on changing the stigmas hemp traditionally holds.

“Students are very interested in hemp. Everyone is interested in hemp,” Hendrix said. “When we have tours on the farm ... it’s the only crop where people will get off the wagon and go into the field and take a selfie.”

More important, Hendrix said, is that hemp has put Kentucky on the map politically and socially.

“In Kentucky, hemp is cool,” Hendrix said. “Everyone thinks it’s cool that Kentucky is leading the way in something. We can kind of be the Silicon Valley for this.”

Door Opens for Florida Cannabis and Hemp Research

By  Mike Vasilinda
Source: flanews.com

Hemp and Cannabis Research was illegal until 2014 when Congress allowed it in the Farm Bill. A little noticed provision of the new medical marijuana law in Florida allows state universities to conduct research. That’s a first for Florida, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, not for other states like Kentucky, which is leaps and bounds ahead of Florida when it comes to this emerging industry.

Later this month Farmers in Kentucky will put their hemp third crop into the ground. Ryan Quarles, the state’s agriculture commissioner, the youngest statewide elected official in America, sees a bright future.

“We know it will grow well in our state. we have a long history in our state, but we want to see what sort of products and processors we can attract here and approach industrial hemp as an economic development iniatitive” says Quarles.

Florida is hoping to get into the action. The next to last line of the medical marijuana bill this year allows Florida colleges and universities with agricultural programs to research Hemp and Cannabis. Florida A&M is ready to jump on the bandwagon says Tim Moore, the schools Vice President for Research.

“What we’re going to do is do research on it to make our industry more competitive, make our industry more effective and more ecological sound. Those are the traits we’ll bring to the table” says Moore.

Just outside Lexington, This Hemp research Campus has taken over this old tobacco facility,

“It crushes the seed and the oil comes out here” explains owner Andy Graves.

And politicians, farmers and researchers here believe that the future of hemp is so bright, that it will eventually be the biggest cash crop here in Kentucky.

“These are completely full of processed hemp material” Graves said as we walked through a

another warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with plastic containers of crushed hemp, grown on just a hundred acres and ready to be processed into hemp oil or CBD…better know as Charlotte’s web.

“it’s better than or equal to in soybean production or corn production in terms of net dollars per acre” Graves says.

Kentucky is one of more than two dozen states who are activity researching hemp, which means Florida has some catching up to do. Kentucky is expected to have four thousand acres of hemp growing this year, and While Florida is slow to embrace this emerging industry, the advantage it has over other states is climate. Here, farmers could sow as many as three crops a year, while others are limited to one or two.

Indiana advocates seek hemp crop expansion, education

By RYAN TRARES
Source: washingtontimes.com

FRANKLIN, Ind. (AP) - Behind tall fences and under the continuous watch of security cameras, Purdue University researchers are working on the next potential cash crop for Indiana.

The seeds of the plant could be used for a high-nutrition food, loaded with fiber, protein and essential fatty acids. Fibers from it can be made into rope, clothing and paper. Parts of the plant could be turned into biofuel, or even building materials.

For those working on the project, industrial hemp offers a wealth of possibility for the state.

“If it can be made with trees, cotton or plastic, it can be made with industrial hemp, only more environmentally friendly,” said Ashley Sample, a Whiteland resident and community coordinator for the Indiana Hemp Industries Association. “We have the flat lands, just like corn. We have the optimal weather in temperature and rain. So there’s no reason for it not to grow well here.”

Purdue researchers, industrial leaders and other supporters of industrial hemp are working to make the plant a viable option for Indiana farmers. The crop has only recently been approved to be grown in research facilities and universities, but enthusiasts hope that the work they’re doing will eventually lead to a growing program and manufacturing industry here locally.

But the current challenge is changing perception about the crop and helping people understand what it is.

“Obviously, hemp is not legal yet. Part of the effort to make hemp legal is an education process - the legislators, the farmers and the general public,” said George Blankenbaker, manager of Real Hemp in Indianapolis.

Hemp is used in more than 20,000 products worldwide, Blankenbaker said. Blankenbaker is on the board of the Indiana Hemp Industries Association, as well as co-chair on the research committee of the Kentucky Hemp Industry Council.

His company Real Hemp was created as a subsidiary of his main company Stevia Corp., to focus on the commercialization of hemp. People can order hulled hemp seed, botanical skin salve and hemp-fiber bags from the company’s website.

Real Hemp also helps facilitate research into the medicinal properties within the plant, as well as looking at the antibacterial properties of hemp fibers.

“Hemp grows well wherever corn grows. So we expect that Indiana could be a major grower of hemp for the Midwest, Ohio Valley area,” he said. “But one thing we don’t know right now is the full economics.”

At one time, Indiana had a robust hemp industry.

The northwestern portion of the state grew fields full of hemp, and processing plants to help turn it into useful products such as clothing. But that changed in 1970 with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act. The law classified hemp plants in the same vein as heroin, psychedelic drugs and marijuana.

Though hemp and marijuana come from the same plant - cannabis sativa - the industrial hemp movement is not about making marijuana legal, Sample said.

The psychoactive component that makes people feel high, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, ranges from 11 to 30 percent in marijuana. Industrial hemp has a much lower level, typically below .3 percent.

“Hemp is not marijuana. So many people believe that, so we have to get rid of that stigma,” Sample said.

The entire cannabis plant is highly regulated and is considered a narcotic by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration regardless of whether the variety is marijuana or hemp.

But changes have been made in recent years to provide greater distinction.

When President Obama signed the Farm Bill of 2013 into law, it gave colleges, universities and research facilities the ability to grow industrial hemp.

Gov. Mike Pence signed Senate Bill 357 into law in 2014, authorizing colleges and universities to do research and development on hemp. The Indiana Hemp Industries Association was instrumental in working with the legislature to pass that bill.

The association was formed in 2014 to promote industrial hemp in the state, and aims to be a bridge between farmers, processing facilities and manufacturers in creating an industry around the crop, Sample said.

Sample, founder Jamie Campbell Petty and Taylor Glover started the group to address what they felt was a missed opportunity for the state.

“We have to have it in the ground if it’s going to result in an industry and help the economy. If it never gets in the ground, we’re never going to know as a state where it might lead,” Sample said.

But while the laws have been loosened regarding industrial hemp and hemp research, commercial hemp cultivation remains illegal.

Before any farmer could plant hemp in Indiana, the Drug Enforcement Agency would have to reclassify it. Ron Turco, professor of agronomy and the assistant dean for agricultural and environmental research at Purdue, believes that could be coming soon.

Purdue planted its first crop of hemp in 2015. This year, researchers are planting a section of hemp specifically for fiber, and another just for products for its seeds. Researchers will have 16 cultivars to test this summer, Turco said.

The hope is to have a collection of varieties that represent the entire range of plant materials people might be interested in growing hemp for, he said. The research will help create a roadmap for growing hemp in Indiana, as well as shed some misconceptions about the plant.

“Our ultimate goal is to make hemp as boring as corn or soybeans. We want to make it a very simple process where you show up, get your seed, plant it, grow it and sell it,” Turco said. “So the goal right now is to find the best varieties for Indiana.”

All of the hemp used by Purdue has been imported from international sources. The mountain of regulations, permits and rules makes every step of the process difficult, Turco said.

“If we were doing work on corn, and I wanted to do that type of work, I’d make a few phone calls, order the seed and be done. Hemp has a whole different group of problems,” he said. “It’s a difficult set of steps involved - a week here, a week there.”

Already, some states are ahead of Indiana in terms of developing a hemp industry. Colorado is a leader in many different cannabis-related industries, while Kentucky has embarked on an aggressive program with farmers throughout the state.

“Once Kentucky imported the seed, the state took a very liberal view, and they allowed universities to issue permits to individual farmers to grow hemp on their farms, and then report back to the university their findings,” Blankenbaker said. “What that enabled them to do is have the involvement of hundreds of growers.”

Indiana’s approach is conservative so far, Sample said. Purdue has been testing and trying different varieties of the plant to determine which grow best locally.

Purdue also will be taking a more careful look at the types of products that can be made from the plants that grow well in Indiana. They are talking to a number of companies about all aspects of the hemp plant this summer, Turco said.

“We’re trying to help spur that discussion about what to do with that material,” he said. “Let’s say we have 10,000 acres of hemp planted. What would we do with that hemp? There is no place to take it right now. That’s a critical step that’s missing right now.”

If the laws change and farmers are able to plant hemp seeds legally, the association will help those growers get their crop to processors and manufacturers who can create products with it.

The association has been supporting the effort by hosting educational events throughout Indiana, talking with farmers and residents about the benefits of industrial hemp. Members have hosted “happy hour” events, set up a booth at the Farm Aid concert in Chicago and hosted a field day at Purdue so people could see the test plot.

“Everyone’s excited about it, but no one knows that much about it,” Sample said. “So our main goal is stressing that hemp is not marijuana and teaching people about what it is.”