Local farmers backing out of Hemp Farming

Source: wbir.com

(WBIR) COCKE COUNTY - Editor's note: The number of hemp farmers who have applied to grow hemp during the 2016 season stands at half of 2015's total number as of Monday afternoon.

The first Industrial Hemp crop planted in Tennessee in over 70 years was not a success for the majority of farmers. Now, many of those farmers will not plant the seeds again.

"We were planning to expand a lot this year, if everything would've went well, I would not have cared at all to plant 300 or 400 acres," said Chuck Mason with Happy Holler Hemp Farms in Parrottsville, TN.

That expansion is not happening. In fact, the Mason family decided to skip out on hemp farming all together. "I'm just not willing to take that chance this year," said Mason.

In 2015, approximately 50 farmers in Tennessee grew the highly regulated seed. So far in 2016, with only two weeks left to apply for a growing permit, half of that number have applied.

"It scared a lot of people off. More than a lot I would say, " said Mason.

The last day to apply to grow Industrial Hemp during the 2016 season is April 1. Click here for more information.

Hemp a potential health food crop

By Matthew Denholm
Source: theaustralian.com.au


Hemp growers Tim and Pip Schmidt with their dog Woody at their farm near Chudleigh in northern Tasmania. Picture: Chris Crerar

As far as food crops go, they don’t much better: light on water and pesticides, good for the soil, in demand globally and incredibly healthy for consumers.

It’s easy to see why hemp seed is increasingly eyed by Australian farmers as an attractive and potentially lucrative new food crop.

Harder to grasp is why the nation’s politicians continue to ignore expert advice that hemp seed — free of the mind-altering chemicals of its druggie cousin, marijuana, and brimming with healthy omega 3 and 6 fatty acids — should be approved for use in food.

“In Canada, it’s a billion-dollar industry — we could be heading in the same direction,” says Phil Reader, crop and cattle farmer and president of the Tasmanian Industrial Hemp Growers Association. “It’s so frustrating — politicians keep saying they support us but it’s not getting through.”

Industrial hemp seed and oil is sought-after globally as a health food — full of protein, nutrients, essential fatty acids and cholesterol-lowering gamma linolenic acid — used in everything from breakfast cereal and health bars to ice-cream.

The plant looks like marijuana, but contains minimal levels of mind-altering tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), while its seeds are THC-free.

Hemp seed has twice been approved for use in food by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (in 2000 and 2012), a step that would bring Australasia into line with most of the rest of the world, and lead to hemp being grown for food here as it is in Europe, Canada and at least 10 US states.

FSANZ’s experts declared hemp seed “safe for consumption” and endorsed it as “a useful alternative dietary source of many nutrients and polyunsaturated fatty acids”.

Australian farmers have been growing hemp since the states began legalising its cultivation in the 1990s for use in hand-creams and shampoos. They say production would take off once the seed is approved for the far larger health food market.

And larger volumes would lead to processing of the byproduct: a strong fibre used in clothing and building products.

However, the final arbiter — health and agriculture ministers meeting as the Australia and NZ Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation — continues to stall approval.

The last hurdle appears to be concerns that people who consume hemp might trigger false positive results in police roadside drug tests — an idea dismissed by FSANZ and rubbished by farmers.

While some THC may rub off on seeds when they are separated from the heads, these trace amounts are not regarded by FSANZ or farmers as an issue, while state regulations strictly limit THC levels in any event.

“You’d have to eat a whole pallet of the stuff for it show up in roadside drug testing,” says Tim Schmidt, who with wife Pip grows hemp and potatoes and runs dairy heifers at Deloraine, northern Tasmania.

WA Police have expressed concern that allowing hemp foods might “send a confused message to consumers regarding the use of illicit cannabis”.

Farmers, particularly those in Tasmania who have grown opium poppies for pharmaceuticals for decades, say this is “ridiculous”. “It’s a hangover from the 60s, when anything to do with cannabis became bad,” says Mr Schmidt. “This is a health food!”

The ministerial forum is due to reconsider the issue on March 31 and farmers are encouraged by support from some states and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. Mr Joyce was unsure of the likely outcome. “We have only one vote in the process,” he said.

WVU College of Law hosts first Strategic Cannabis Conference

By Kayla Asbury
Source: thedaonline.com

In addition to the festivities of St. Patrick’s Day, West Virginia doctors, lawyers and policy experts met March 17 to discuss something green.

West Virginia University’s College of Law held the first Strategic Cannabis Conference on Industrial and Medical Uses Thursday, inviting professionals to discuss creating the "Gold Standard" of cannabis in West Virginia.

The event centered on utilizing cannabis agriculturally and medically to combat the state’s $380 million budget deficit, as well as the opioid epidemic and unemployment rates in the state.

"We believe (this event) is very appropriate to have at the College of Law and to have at the University," said Jesse Richardson, an associate professor of law at WVU.

The event was split into three specific discussions, with multiple speakers for each category. The event gave a legal overview of cannabis, and discussions on medical and industrial cannabis.

Richardson, while giving a brief history of cannabis laws in the country and West Virginia specifically, stated West Virginia has ideal terrain to grow hemp, and would redevelop the coalfields.

"If we could come up with a legal crop in agriculture that farmers could actually make a little money, that would be huge in West Virginia," Richardson said.

Richardson sited one of the problems with using marijuana medically in the state is its lack of traceability.

Cody Stiffler, the vice president of government affairs for BioTrakTHC, offered his company as a solution to the problem of traceability.

BioTrakTHC, a start-up company specializing in tracking every portion of cannabis production and sales, from seeds, to plants, to waste, brags it is "the only seed to sale solution."

Crystal Good, a West Virginia poet and advocate, spoke about how cannabis was a plant that could bring success to the mountain state.

"Now is the time to be creative and tough when it comes to ending the prohibition on prosperity," Good said.

The idea that the cannabis industry is evil is what prevents it from becoming popular in the state’s culture, according to Good.

"The evolution of West Virginia depends of truthful and deliberate cannabis industry education," Good said.

The event was organized by J. Morgan Leach, a third year law student at WVU and executive director of the West Virginia Hemp Farmers Cooperative and speaker at the conference.

"Our species has coevolved with cannabis at our side," Leach said. "We’ve used it for food. We’ve used it for fiber. We’ve used it for medicine for thousands of years…"

Cannabis has been the most beneficial plant to our species, according to Leach.

"We’ve made it illegal at our own dismay," Leach said. "Our decisions have been based on fear. If we allow ourselves to continue to base our decisions on fear, we will give that fear disproportionate attention and manufacture the very circumstances we wish to avoid."

Ignorance and common misconceptions about cannabis are what prevent development of medical marijuana and a thriving industrial cannabis business in West Virginia, according to Dr. Clark Milton from the Wheeling Hospital in Wheeling, West Virginia.

"We’re not very knowledgeable…. about the legality issue and the repression of research…." Milton said. "In 2016, we need evidence, not belief."

West Virginia is one of the 27 states allowing for production of industrial hemp, and Leach spoke in hope that the conference would inspire those in attendance to continue to make strides toward a prosperous cannabis culture in West Virginia.

"As is our motto here at West Virginia University, we should all go first in this industry, together…" Leach said. "We need help push our nation forward with cannabis cultivation, both industrial and medical."

For more information, visit http://law.wvu.edu/

Hempcrete: WA company DecoHousing to build Denmark village out of ‘kitty litter’

By
Source: domain.com.au


Hempcrete has been praised for its strength as well as its fireprooof capabilities. Photo: Hempcrete Australia website


An idea, emerging from the unusual location of the cat litter tray, is set to put the sleepy town of Denmark on the map – as a leader in environmentally friendly living.

DecoHousing is set to begin construction on Western Australia’s first eco-village, with the 12 planned dwellings set to be built partly using hempcrete.

Hempcrete is a product that has been commonly used throughout Europe as a lightweight and thermally efficient construction material.

The plot earmarked for a new eco-village in Denmark. Photo: DecoHousing Facebook

It’s a result of combining the innards of the hemp plant stem with lime, forming a super-lightweight material that is both sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Previously the hemp innards were a product used as little more than filler for the cat litter tray, but the addition of lime has turned it into a sustainable building material.

DecoHousing project manager Paul Llewellyn said the Denmark eco-village was continuing a life’s experiment to try to live a sustainable life on the Western Australian coast.

“We wanted to use hempcrete as a high-performance building material that ticked all the boxes for sustainability,” Mr Llewellyn said.

“Hempcrete’s been used to build houses on the east coast of Australia and the hempcrete industry is thriving in the south of France, but this will be the first major project in Western Australia.

“Although it makes a fantastic cat litter, there is only so much use for cat litter.”

Mr Llewellyn said the qualities of hempcrete include high thermal performance and acoustic function, termite resistance and fireproof capabilities.

“If we can demonstrate its ability on a large scale we would like to see the construction industry set up to build around hempcrete. It’s the direction European countries are moving in,” he said.

“We are always a bit behind those countries when it comes to moving forward in sustainable construction, but the industry desperately needs sustainability built into it.”

DecoHousing’s community liaison Pam Rumble said the eco-village would bring people from all walks of life together, particularly those who often found themselves isolated from society.

“With co-housing we get together with like minded people and we have fun together,” she said

“This way of living can prevent the isolation of older people and the isolation of young mothers with children.”

Mr Llewellyn said the Denmark eco-village could be a model for a full suite of sustainable living projects across Western Australia.

He said the building industry needed to take steps to become more environmental.

“Our houses at the moment are a liability — they’re inexpensive and they’re inefficient,” Mr Llewellyn said.

Pennsylvania Senate Unanimously Passes Industrial Hemp Bill

By Thomas H. Clarke
Source: thedailychronic.net

HARRISBURG, PA — While sick Pennsylvanians anxiously await the outcome of an expected vote to legalize medical marijuana in the Pennsylvania House, lawmakers in the Senate voted unanimously to approve a bill to create an industrial hemp cultivation pilot program on Wednesday.

Members of the Senate voted 49-0 to approve Senate Bill 50, the Industrial Hemp Act.  Over 20 states have adopted similar laws.

The bill, which authorizes instituions of higher education to conduct agricultural pilot programs in hemp cultivation research under guidelines issued by the federal government in 2014, now heads to the House for consideration

Hemp products are already legal in the United States, but only if the hemp is imported from the more than 30 countries that legally grow it.   In 2014, members of Congress relaxed some federal restrictions on hemp cultivation by approving language in the omnibus federal Farm Bill that explicitly authorizes states to sponsor hemp research and pilot programs absent federal reclassification of the plant.

Hemp is a durable natural fiber, a nutritious food product for humans and pets, a superior building material, and has thousands of other known uses. A hemp crop needs half the water alfalfa uses, is a great rotation crop to use after legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil and it can be grown without heavy use of pesticides.

Farmers worldwide grow hemp commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products, including food and clothing.  The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop on a large scale, according to the Congressional Resource Service.

Over thirty countries produce industrial hemp, including Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey and Ukraine.

The majority of hemp sold in the United States is imported from China and Canada, the world’s largest exporters of the crop.

The full text of Senate Bill 50 can be found here.

State to certify industrial hemp seeds in an initiative touted as first in the nation

By Jerd Smith and Shay Castle
Source: dailycamera.com

Colorado, already a national leader in hemp cultivation, is pushing forward with a plan to certify seed, in part to ensure THC levels, the active ingredient in marijuana, do not exceed legal levels.

"We've always felt that if hemp is going to be an agricultural crop, it has to be treated like a mainstream agricultural crop. The grower needs to know what he is getting," said Duane Sinning, assistant director of the Colorado Department of Agriculture's Division of Plant Industry.

To be classified as industrial, hemp may contain no more than 0.3 percent THC. If hemp farmers inadvertently plant seeds that create higher THC levels in plants, those crops have to be destroyed, Sinning said.

More than 2,000 acres of land is being used to grow hemp statewide, with about 170 registered growers. Sinning said the program, being done with Colorado State University, will test hemp plants grown all across Colorado to determine how the different plants perform.

"Colorado's unique climate really does separate plants. Higher altitude areas, dryer areas all of those things cause differences in THC content," Sinning said.

"I think it's an excellent development for the state and will provide a lot of options for local hemp businesses to acquire reliably tested seeds," said Tim Gordon, chief operating officer for CBDRx, a grower and wholesaler of hemp and extracted oils. The company operates facilities in Boulder and Longmont.

"The testing itself is rather encompassing. On the growing side, for us it's an arduous process to develop a strain that's going to be continually certified as hemp and have it be stable enough to be grown in a variety of environments and be consistent throughout," Gordon said.

The program is being launched initially with $100,000 in state funding, but eventually it will be supported by fees paid by seed growers and farmers, Sinning said.

The certification will be issued by the Colorado Seed Growers Association, which will verify genetics, THC content and cultivation techniques.

"It's going to have huge impacts on businesses locally and act as a template for departments of agriculture across the nation," said Zev Pace, executive director of the National Hemp Association.

"It's going to allow all of us to identify hemp cultivars that work especially well and are especially stable here in a Colorado environment," Pace said.

Sinning said the state hopes growers will have "CDA Approved Certified Seed" in time for the 2017 planting season.

Those interested in participating can contact terry.moran@state.co.us.

Nebraska resumes growing hemp this year

By Allen Jenkins
Source: kearneyhub.com

When modern humans arrived in the Yangtze River valley 40,000 years ago, they found a naturally occurring plant that provided high quality fiber, nutritious seeds and useful oils. As the hunter-gatherers began to develop agriculture and settle into permanent villages around 10,000 years ago, they found that this wild plant was easily cultivated. Hemp thus became one of the very first cultivated crops, and played an important role in human history for thousands of years.

Hemp provided the textiles for early clothing and the pulp for the first paper. Hemp sails, ropes and rigging pushed explorers and armadas around the globe — sometimes to glory and sometimes to disaster. Humans carried hemp around the world for its valuable seed and oil, its usefulness as a medicinal herb and its superior fiber for paper, textiles and rope. Hemp has few natural pests and crowds out most weeds. Sailors took hemp seed to plant in new lands, an insurance policy to ensure that they would have the raw material needed for rigging and sail repairs after storm or battle.

Hemp made the Age of Discovery possible, and directly impacted world history. Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia was prompted by his need to halt the flow of Russian hemp to the British navy. Napoleon knew he could not directly defeat the Royal Navy, but he also knew the British could not keep their ships at sea without Russian hemp. America’s Founding Fathers understood the importance of hemp to the navy. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew it. Government policy created incentives to grow hemp, and protected domestic production with tariffs on imported hemp.

In the 1800s, the hub of U.S. hemp production moved west to Kentucky. By 1900, hemp was grown in Nebraska near Fremont and Havelock, and Fremont had a processing plant. Unfortunately, 80 years ago the U.S. pushed hemp into the ditch with misguided and unjustified prohibition. Hemp lacks the psychoactive THC found in its cannabis cousin, marijuana. Government policy made no distinction between hemp and marijuana.

Today hemp is regaining its status as one of our most useful natural resources. Like corn and soybeans, hemp is now grown for an expanding menu of food and industrial purposes. Hemp seed, 45 percent oil, 35 percent protein and 10 percent carbohydrates and fiber, has a robust nutritional future. Hemp oil, traditionally used for industrial functions such as paint and varnish, is now finding major new markets in the cosmetic and food industries. The CBD compounds in hemp are now being evaluated for a host of medicinal uses. New uses for hemp fibers are being created in the drive for sustainable agriculture.

The 2014 Farm Bill allowed states to begin to cultivate hemp for research purposes. Nebraska is one of 28 states that enacted legislation allowing cultivation for research. The first legal hemp crops in Nebraska since the 1940s will be planted by university researchers this spring. 

The 2016 Marienau Symposium at UNK on March 30 will provide two great opportunities for Nebraskans to learn more about hemp. A panel discussion from 11:15 a.m. to noon and an informal question and answer session from 2-3 p.m. will provide Nebraskans with an opportunity to hear from four people now engaged in hemp cultivation and the development of hemp-based products. 

Both sessions are in the Nebraskan Student Union, and are free and are open to the public. 

In 1938, “Popular Mechanics” magazine featured hemp, declaring it the “new $1 billion crop.” The next few years will see that prediction come true, and we will see the full return of our ancient partner.

Allan Jenkins is a professor of economics at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Hemp seeds to be planted

WKYT - Lexington, KY

Autoplay: On | Off