As the first year of hemp farming in Michigan ends, industry leaders say they hope to make plastics and wood from the plant’s fiber — once they hurdle the obstacles to market expansion.
“Every part of it has uses, but the infrastructure isn’t in place to make use of those parts,” said Dave Crabill, communications director for iHemp Michigan, the recently founded association of local industrial hemp farmers.
The state’s pilot program allowed farmers to grow industrial hemp if they signed a research agreement. The state agriculture department is currently accepting 2020 applications from farmers for a second year in the program.
An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 acres of Michigan hemp were grown under that agreement, but the number fluctuates regularly based upon when license applications come in to the state government’s system, said Jennifer Holton, director of communications for the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development in an email.
Hemp had been illegal primarily because it is part of the cannabis family, just like marijuana. The 2018 federal farm bill removed hemp from the list of controlled substances and the 2014 farm bill permitted universities and state agriculture departments to study the crop.
Hemp fibers are traditionally used in fiber-based products, including rope, clothing and mattress-tops, said Theresa Sisung, associate field crops specialist for the Michigan Farm Bureau.
But processing hemp into cannabidiol, or CBD oil used in wellness programs, boosted the plant’s popularity.
An estimated 285,000 acres of industrial hemp were planted in the U.S. in 2019, up from 78,000 acres in 2018, according to research conducted by Brightfield Group, a market intelligence firm for legal cannabis industries.
The firm expects an annual growth rate of 75% per year through 2023.
Michigan’s pilot program was permitted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture when it lifted the ban on hemp plants in 2018.
New federal hemp rules were announced last month, including provisions for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to approve hemp production plans, if the plants don’t test positive for excessive concentration of psychoactive chemicals.
As a member of the cannabis family, hemp can have THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, and CBD, marketed as a wellness product to treat anxiety and minor pain relief. Hemp is legally used for CBD.
USDA regulations require hemp to maintain a THC content below .3%, and states must collect the samples to ensure compliance with them. As the industry matures, it could change Michigan’s manufacturing practices, Cabrill said.
Sunstrand, a Kentucky hemp processing company, is using hemp to create sustainable manufacturing materials like wood and oil-based plastic.
“There is a significant lack of processing in the state,” Sisung at the Michigan Farm Bureau said. “There are a lot of shady people involved in the hemp industry right now because it is so new.”
Some Michigan farmers agreed to send hemp crops to a processing company, only to never hear from the processor again, she said.
Crabill said that for sustainable materials to gain traction, a purchase order from a plastics company that needs hemp fibers is necessary.
But the interest in hemp continues to surge. A breakthrough in making hemp products a cost-competitive plastic substitute could come within three years, Crabill said.
It’s not that Michigan can’t grow the crop, Sisung said.
“We’re seeing it grown all over the state,” she said. “We do have some good soil here”
But before Michigan can revolutionize the hemp product market, farmers have to follow government standards, Crabill said.
Farmers are concerned about unintentionally cross-pollinating with marijuana plants, causing their hemp crops to violate federal law. This is a bigger concern since Michigan’s legalization of recreational marijauna
“A hemp plant is like a horny teenager,” Crabill said. “The pollen of a male plant can travel as far as 20 miles away — the standard is at least 7 miles.”
Crabill said the pollen also increases the concentration of the chemicals near the top of a cannabis plant, which is the portion of the plant that regulators test for THC.
The testing for THC needs improvement, said Brandon Canfield, an associate professor of chemistry at Northern Michigan University.
Hemp is a new commodity, and the history of cannabis criminalization has prevented a robust quality test, Canfield said
Canfield runs the university’s medicinal plant chemistry program. He said the amount of THC in hemp varies depending on when and how you test for it.
Complicating things further, Sisung said, some states have tested for total THC as opposed to a specific kind of THC with a lower concentration.
Any plant that tests above .3% of THC concentration has to be destroyed and any individual with a hemp plant that tests above half a percent is criminally negligent, Crabill said.
*Available Now ~ Fresh Hemp Flower @ AZURE Organic Farms!
As most of us know by now, “good health can create wealth, however wealth cannot always create good health” Learn to make Full Spectrum Hemp Oil with fresh Hemp flower and thrive…
It’s the high-minded person that thinks beyond the norm of society, one who thinks with gut and the heart. Our gut and heart intelligence reminds us to be as natural as possible especially when choosing our health and healing modalities.
Fresh Hemp being harvested by the bushel with Nathan Stelzer and the 4 generations of the Stelzer Family, AZURE Organic Farms
We are all blessed at this time that Cannabis is back and now legal in all 50 states to heal the damage that has occurred from a starved endocannabinoid system. This has led to imbalances in our homeostasis and the potential for long term dysfunction.
I think most of us know by now, we have an endocannabinoid system with receptors for cannabinoids. These receptors are connected to and feed our endocrine and immune system. When we nourish our we bring our bodies back to balance and wholeness. Over time, that’s just a fact. And we have to do our part!
Many of us are challenged to understand this new multi-million dollar CBD industry that has launched its way into our world. There are more CBD Brands than there are people to consume them. Which CBD brand and delivery system would be the best for me and which can I afford on a monthly basis? Am I really getting the most out of the cannabis plant with just one isolated ingredient, CBD?
According to recent studies there are six common and well-researched cannabinoids—CBD, CBDA, CBN, CBG, CBC and CBDV—each with a specific application.
If you’re new to the world of CBD, you might be confused and overwhelmed by the list of acronyms above. So, let’s start with a simpler question: what is a cannabinoid? First discovered in Israel in the 1960s, cannabinoids are naturally occurring chemical compounds derived from the cannabis plant. These compounds are responsible for the many positive therapeutic effects of cannabis, with each compound offering distinctive properties and benefits. To date, scientists have discovered more than 110 cannabinoids; more are likely to be found as we continue to explore the complex molecular structures of the cannabis plant. https://intrinsichemp.com/cbd-cbda-cbn-cbg-cbc-cbdv-differences/
With this in mind, some of us leading edge investigators are discovering that full spectrum cannabinoids may be the best and most effective way to ingest and deliver cannabinoids to our entire system.
Michelle Stelzer cutting fresh organic hemp flower for Hempington Post!
How you ask? Fresh grown cannabis, be it Hemp or MMJ provides full spectrum cannabinoids. Accordingly, whole plant juicing has emerged as the best delivery system available to nurture us back to homeostasis and a balanced immune system, thereby creating wellness on many levels. This is the purest and most cost effective way to self care and self heal our mind/body/spirit. This is priceless!
Whole plant juicing is the way, beyond CBD.
I received an anonymous email regarding an Organic Farm here in Northern Oregon that was beginning to harvest their first Organic Hemp Crop and were offering fresh Hemp flower to the public. It is a novel idea for a farmer to make the whole Cannabis Hemp plant available for consumers to juice or to make a simple oil extract that is rich with all the cannabinoids, not just CBD!
Visiting the Azure Farms in Dufur Oregon Oct 27th was an amazing experience.
Their grow operation is operated by four generations of the Stelzer family from grandparents through grandchildren, all cultivating a healthy eating lifestyle for the world. Azure farms is family owned and operated and independent 100% NON-GMO Organic farm.
As for the high minded Founder and CEO David Stelzer, his early challenges in life became his saving grace for the future. David feels he is truly in a position to make a huge difference in the world:
‘Now, more than ever, people need to know that better nutrition can improve their lives and the lives of those around them. If people were better nourished, healthcare (or should we say sick-care) costs would be diminished, crime and domestic violence would likely be curbed, and more people could enjoy a truly abundant life. Azure provides a way for people to have access to that good food at affordable prices.’ comments Suzan Booth David’s executive assistant.
The Hemp operation at AZURE is amazing with 50ish acres of beautiful Hemp flower growing on their Non-GMO Organic farmland.
With this being their very first Hemp Grow AZURE Farms is doing something very innovative for our world, they are offering to ship fresh whole plant hemp to your door anywhere in the world, while it lasts. FYI the weather is beginning to chill so dry hemp flower will be availbe…
HEMP OIL EXTRACTION RECIPE
For HempOil the plants are best dried after receiving, David has created an easy way to make a full spectrum Hemp Coconut Oil. This can save all of us thousands of dollars over time for our health, and for our the health of our family and friends whom we can share this with.
You can Contact AZURE FARMS today and purchase your fresh dried Hemp Flower straight from this Organic farm at $32 a lb, with a two lb minimum. You can thank me after you’ve made your first Hemp Oil or have begun juicing whole plant for life… I’m clearly putting my whole-body stamp of approval on this.
Contact me directly to discover the best Hemp plant juicer ever at a price you can only say Yes too. [email protected]
No matter where you are in life, now is a good time to choose ‘listening to self and our body first’. I promise feeding our endocannabinoid systems changes realities that could not be nourished any other way!
It’s true. Hemp is the next cash crop. However, before you buy a bag of seeds on the internet, locate a plot of land in sunny Florida, and toss seeds like Johnny Appleseed expecting money to grow out of the ground, first, do the research. I can’t stress enough how important it is to look before you leap; I recommend working with an association to act as a professional guide because navigating these waters will be no easy task.
Case in point, July 2019 is on record as the day merchant service providers threw the hemp industry a major-league curveball. The hemp industry had been on a winning streak and many newcomers to the business hadn’t lived through the bleakness of instant bank account closings, bad product, no product, or wire and revoked merchant privileges, but for those in the industry for any length of time, this was their normal. “I have experienced and heard stories of CFOs spending 60-70% of their time over the last three months completing applications for banking and merchant services,” said Christopher Martinez, Chairman and President of The Florida Hemp Council. The good news is some banks and merchant service providers realize the burgeoning opportunity and are lining the bases with new payment options.
Are your seeds Certified? Seeds are only certified to variety and not to levels of THC, or CBD because this data does not exist…yet. And for every state which has legalized hemp, it’ll take two to three years before a farm turns a significant profit. The growing farms in Florida will not be any different.
As we overcome these obstacles and swing for the fences, the next fastpitch is CBD processing. CBD extraction is the topic of conversation lately and there’s no doubt investment into CBD extraction is already happening in Florida. However, fiber production requires retting, degumming, and decortication. This fiber production technology is advanced in China but woefully neglected in the United States. We know big manufacturers have been sniffing around but until big money jumps into space we can expect it to move at a snail’s pace.
Rounding out the inning are the retailers, which legally must register with Florida to ensure they’re not selling unregistered or uncertified products, plus all organic labeling is accurate and consumer safety. It’s important that retailers request a Certificate of Analysis (COA) for each product being sold in their stores from an accredited 3rd party laboratory. Per the FDA, CBD cannot medically cure or treat what ails you, so labels must not claim to do so. Consumers are learning anecdotally via social media and online how CBD, CBG, CBN, and the entourage effect can help with certain health conditions. If products go to a retailer, manufacturer, or another reseller, no health claims are allowed by law on the product label or marketing.
So, as a fledgling industry, where consumers can’t be told how to ingest the products, or how much product to administer, retailers must exercise caution over the watchful eye of law enforcement, manufacturers need clean extraction, and farmers need certified seeds, then how is our business going to grow from under the radar to $20 billion over the next five years? The answer is simpler than you’d suspect – consumers see firsthand that the products work for them and they spread the word. Retailers educate themselves by joining organizations such as the Florida Hemp Council, while manufacturers and farmers do what they have always done, meet consumer demand.
In 2017, the Nevada Department of Agriculture issued 26 permit for hemp growers as a research program. In 2018, hemp was removed from the Schedule 1 federal drug list, and turned into an agricultural commodity. Now there are more than 200 hemp grower in the silver state.
In 2017, the Nevada Department of Agriculture issued 26 permit for hemp growers as a research program. In 2018, hemp was removed from the Schedule 1 federal drug list, and turned into an agricultural commodity. Now there are more than 200 hemp grower in the silver state.
Don Blunt is one of the more than 200 farmers growing hemp this season, and it’s his first since joining the industry. They’re about seven to eight weeks away from their first harvest, but right now they’re making space to grow more next year.
“We’re going to clear another 50 acres next year, We have a 50-acre farm this year and it’s doing quite well,” Blunt says. “We have about 110 thousand plants, and the growing cycle is 120 days and we’re about halfway there.”
Blunt opened his farm in March and planted his first hemp plants in June. He decided to start a hemp farm after CBD cured his migraines. He had gone to neurologists at the Mayo Clinic and Stanford and nothing worked prior.
“That was about a little less than a year ago,” Blunt says. “And I’m headache free now I lost all of my migraines because of the CBD.”
There’s demand for industrial hemp products like rope, but Blunt plans to sell all of his hemp for CBD use. He likes the medicinal effects, and likes the variety of products.
“Tinctures, the vapes, the balms, the rubs for arthritis and so forth,” Blunt says. “We’ve had several inquiries for cancer treatments for the pain. Pets is a huge market. We give all of our pets CBD.”
In order for hemp to be legally sold by farmers, it has to be tested for THC, and can’t have more than .03 percent of THC. Blunt says that’s not hard to meet if you buy quality product.
“It’s all about the genetics,” Blunt says. “If you buy good seeds from the proper people. We actually do third-party testing with three different labs in three different states.”
Blunt says he could add more acreage down the line. He hopes as the industry grows and more states recognize cannabis and hemp as useful products, banks will be more open to doing business with them.
“They have kind of grown in their horns so to speak,” Blunt says. “They’re not supporting hemp at this time. And I hope that changes because it makes it tough on us farmers.”
Blunt has six full-time employees, and adds about 30 workers when it’s time to harvest because there’s so much extra work.
The U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance has unveiled a new film that highlights the urgency needed in the fight against climate change.
Despite uncertain economic times, farmers are front and center as the agents for change in “30 Harvests.”
The docudrama follows the plight of farmer Jay Hill of Dell City, Texas and farmer and soil scientist Meagan Kaiser of Bowling Green, Missouri.
In the short film, they articulate the challenge farmers face while embracing the opportunity to meet the increasing demands for food, and ultimately help solve one of the greatest challenges of this generation: climate change.
If you would like to watch “30 Harvests”, it’s now available in its entirety on You Tube.
The Montana Department of Agriculture is reminding hemp growers that verification of license information and additional fees are required before growers can be issued their hemp production license, which is needed to harvest and process or sell their crop.
The Department sent letters to each license holder at the beginning of July asking growers to verify the crop information that will be printed on each grower’s license certificate.
The information provided should be sent to the Department asap as it helps the Department track production and develop timelines for sampling and testing.
If you are a grower who did not receive a letter from the Department, please contact Andy Gray at (406) 444-0512.
It’s easy to get swept away in the magic of a hemp farm where dragonflies float and goats bleat on verdant hills. Franny’s Farm is a place where practical magic and science meet.
Owned and operated by Franny Tacy and her husband and CEO Jeff Tacy, Franny’s is an active hemp farm in Leicester, and one of the grower sites for North Carolina State University’s Industrial Hemp Pilot Research Program. The program’s aim is to shoulder the burden of trial and error for farmers who want to dig into a swiftly growing industry.
Franny Tacy was a pharmaceutical industry executive
for a decade, and also holds a forestry degree from Northern Arizona
University in Flagstaff and a master’s in education from Tennessee State
University.
She’s also the first female industrial
hemp grower in Western North Carolina and, as a woman, part of the
fastest-growing farmer demographic in the U.S. The future of hemp, she
said, is female.
“The hemp revolution, if you will, in Western North Carolina is being led by female researchers, and female growers and female business owners,” she said.
Meagan Coneybeer-Roberts, a Ph.D. researcher and part
of the Alternative Crops and Organic Research group at NC State, and
Gwen Casebeer, a master’s student at NC State, are two of the women
leading hemp research in the region.
Their work
focuses exclusively on industrial hemp, with field trials taking place
on seven regional grower farms: four in Buncombe County and three in
Caldwell County, all averaging 1,000 plants per acre, with the largest
site a biodynamic grower in Caldwell with 6 acres.
“We take the burden of risk and we take the burden of experimentation, and we allow the growers to take what we find that works,” Coneybeer-Roberts said. “Then they can use that to make money and grow hemp successfully.”
On the day research clones were planted in Tacy’s
field, shortly after Mother’s Day, shamans came to tap drums and bless
the plants. While inviting a shaman to a hemp planting might sound as
Asheville as you can get, Coneybeer-Roberts said ritual can easily
co-exist with science.
“There are indications that plants respond to music, to sound, to vibration,” she said, standing on the edge of the field where volunteers planted buffer plants around her research rows. “It certainly couldn’t hurt.”
Before the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act swept hemp away in
prohibition, American farmers long grew the plant for fiber, feed and
more, with George Washington one of hemp’s more famous cultivators.
“The government even encouraged them to do so,” said Dr. Jeanine Davis, adviser to Casebeer and Coneybeer-Roberts. Davis is an associate professor and extension specialist with the Department of Horticultural Science at NC State.
It wasn’t until the 2014 Farm Bill, under
then-president Barack Obama, that growers were allowed to plant pilot
industrial hemp plots, and only under the umbrella of universities and
state departments of agriculture for research.
Ever since President Donald Trump signed into law the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018,
hemp containing less than 0.3% THC is now regulated by the Food and
Drug Administration, moving it out from under Drug Enforcement
Administration regulation, Davis said.
The 2018
Farm Bill removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, which means
that it is no longer a controlled substance under federal law, allowing
for the possibility of crop insurance and opening doors to bank funding,
Davis explained. “People should be able to grow more freely.”
At
the same time, according to an FDA statement, Congress preserved the
FDA’s authority to regulate products containing cannabis or
cannabis-derived compounds under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic
Act and section 351 of the Public Health Service Act.
“The
FDA will now help, and some will say hinder, us decide whether CBD will
be regulated as a botanical, a pharmaceutical, or some of both,” Davis
said. “I’m looking forward to rules and regulations on production so we,
as consumers, know we’re getting a safe, clean product.”
Now,
it’s a brave new world, and hemp agriculture is booming in the state,
with 3,000 permits issued for hemp growers this year, a 900% increase in
less than a year.
The national appetite for hemp
and hemp-derived products is huge, with Scientific American reporting
the U.S. imported more than $67 million worth of hemp seed and fiber
products in 2017.
Some of hemp’s growth is likely influenced by the booming demand for CBD, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid proponents say is useful for everything from arthritic pain to anxiety in humans and in pets.
The CBD market was worth nearly $200 million in 2017, triple that by the end of last year. Rapid growth is predicted to continue.
That’s just one tool in hemp’s toolbox, with the plant’s uses counting among the tens of thousands, some largely unexplored, and many nowhere near as sexy as CBD. They include everything from fiber to cooking products to a building material called “hempcrete.”
One size does not fit all when it comes to the plant, and plants grown for fiber might not be useful for oil. Figuring which plants are best for which use, and how those plants prefer to grow, is no easy task.
That’s where the trials come in.
Proponents of hemp agriculture, like Tacy, hope the results could help North Carolina emerge as a leader in the industry. “You have Florida oranges, Idaho potatoes, and hopefully North Carolina hemp,” she said.
Hemp’s long history buried
Decades-long prohibition has left huge gaps in grower knowledge, and programs like NC State’s and other hemp trials aim to fill in the spaces.
“There are multiple generations that haven’t come into contact with hemp as a crop so, for production and harvest information, a lot of the resources I’ve used personally date back to the 19th century and in other countries,” Coneybeer-Roberts said.
Working to push the notion of knowledge as power is the nonprofit Women in Hemp.
Co-founded by Tacy, LilyHemp boutique’s Susan Cromer, Florida hemp attorney Carrie McKnight and Coeus Research founder Debbie Custer, Women in Hemp has worked to help back hemp research, providing, for one, at least a quarter of the funding for Coneybeer-Roberts’ and Casebeers’ project.
Tacy, who once started a junior high science club to get microscopes in her school, says she feels the same sort of childlike wonder in throwing her energy behind Women in Hemp.
It’s the right mix of magic, science and activism that fuels her work on the farm. “Mixing science and magic is exactly what we were doing in the field this morning,” she said in July, the field hemp not yet flowered.
She and a new hire had worked together under the hot summer sun, mixing organic fertilizer and rigorously testing and balancing the pH — getting the science right first, Tacy said.
Then, the magic: As part of biodynamic principles, they swirled the water clockwise 50 times, then counterclockwise 50 times to create a vortex over which Tacy read poetry.
“We have love written on our barn over our hemp field, and we go into the field with our best intentions,” she said. “We’re putting science out there, but our intentions are what are helping create a crop tens of thousands of people have access to in our product line.”
Tacy grows enough hemp to create a vertically integrated supply chain for Franny’s Farm products, sold online and in the company’s four Franny’s Farmacy dispensaries. Within weeks, the company will offer a public stock option, with franchise options also coming to the table.
Tacy hopes hemp will become North Carolina’s new agricultural legacy, and her company is proof there’s a strong market for it. “I think right now, we’re in the gold rush era, if you will, and we found a nugget with CBD — no pun intended.”
A reason to be optimistic
Of the 22 rows of hemp on Franny’s Farm, NC State’s trial plants occupy the center of five, each covered in different colors of plastic.
The red plastic, Coneybeer-Roberts said in May, might encourage flower set. The silver might have some utility in reducing insects. Black warms the soil, while white doesn’t trap the heat as much. The green? “We don’t know yet,” she said, but it’s something they’ve observed in marijuana cultivation in places where it’s legal.
They won’t know the impacts until later this year. The trials are double blind, and not even the growers know the identities of the hemp plant varietals, many provided by Triangle Hemp in Durham.
The results of what will be a three-year trial will eventually be compared with 20 universities across the world, including in Dubai, Barcelona and Texas. The trials will have studied hemp for fiber and food for three years at the end of this season, which will also mark the second year of CBD research.
Davis said she’s not sure yet how the information will be compiled and disseminated. “But I think we’re going to answer a lot of questions.”
For a researcher, it’s an exciting prospect to be on the forefront of the cultivation of a crop that’s been illegal to grow for generations simply because of its association with a psychoactive cousin.
There’s no real reason not to be optimistic. The question isn’t whether or not hemp will grow here, but what kind is perfect for each region, and how to build the infrastructure to process it into an end product — which itself is a long and complicated story.
A replacement for tobacco?
Hemp is often held up as a viable replacement for tobacco, once a booming industry and cultural influence in the state, now all but faded.
Part of the hemp narrative is the notion that the planting, growing and processing methods for tobacco can be easily transferred to hemp. But there are still so many questions left unanswered and, as Tacy will tell you, a lot of misinformation out there.
“The important thing to remember is we are still in a pilot program and still doing a lot of research, so everyone growing hemp in North Carolina has the exact length of time of experience,” Coneybeer-Roberts said. “We are all equally experienced and inexperienced.”
Tacy has a farmer’s directness and a passion for her crop. “There is never going to be another tobacco,” she said. “Tobacco has one use. Hemp is the only crop that will feed, clothe, shelter and provide medicine.”
In five years, Tacy predicted, hemp prohibition will seem like nothing but a blip. “It will seem ridiculous that we ever didn’t grow hemp. It will be in our food system, in our clothing system, in our building materials, our bio-fuels. Every aspect.”
North Carolina has one of the strongest agricultural economies in the country, she said.
“We are farming people. We have a farm economy here, and our farmers have struggled with the loss of tobacco; they’ve struggled to get a foothold into something new.”
Whether or not hemp will become North Carolina’s agricultural calling card remains to be seen, though researchers will be one step closer to finding out after this growing season.
But on the sunny May day the clones went into the ground, Jeff Tacy addressed the volunteers gathered for the occasion, his focus on the day-to-day magic he said surrounds the plant.
“I’m in the dispensaries every day, and it’s been mind-blowing the feedback we’ve gotten from people using CBD products,” he said. “It’s many miracles every day in these stores as we interact with people who are getting off opioids, and getting back to a normal lifestyle and finding relief from their inflammation.”
“This is where it starts,” he said, gesturing to the fields. “It’s been an amazing journey.”
