No Hemp in Texas

The dream of legal hemp, of a new crop which can save the farm, is often just a dream.  So it seems in Texas.

I remember ostrichs, and llamas, and a handful of exotic plants which were permitted on "set-aside" acreage back in the 1970's.  All dreams which turned into nightmares for those who gambled on them. 

Trying to Define Hemp

 It seems there's another problem in defining hemp--we know it can't have a lot of THC, but now there's a "isomer" called Delta 8-THC. Is it natural or not?  Apparently it makes a difference in legality.  See this piece for more detail and more accuracy than those sentences.

Vertical Farming and Pot as an Example

 I think I'm now using "vertical farming" as a label for any high-tech growing system under artificial lighting.  In that regard. this Modern Farmer piece notes the environmental impact of growing pot indoors. Whether it's marijuana leaves or lettuce leaves, there's a tradeoff. 

Views of an Old Grump

 A collection of gripes, with no particular theme and no sources.

• FSA is one step further along to treating hemp as just another crop--a recent notice covered NAP's provisions relative to it.  I guess that's okay, but
• When I see the legalization of marijuana, I recall vividly my HS science teacher, a Mr. Youngstrum, cautioning us never to use marijuana.  The vivid memory stems from his vehement emotion, unusual to see in any teacher in that era.  I guess I know the arguments, and don't really oppose the trend; it's just a big change since my youth.
• I heard on the radio something, an ad I guess, which was anti-tobacco.  I think the woman said we could eliminate smoking in 12-15 years.  Hadn't been paying enough attention to follow the argument or her reasoning.  As a reformed 2+ pack a day smoker (long ago) that wouldn't be bad, although I'm skeptical of our ability to do so.  And it jars a big when contrasted to our position on marijuana.
• I saw a reference to "authentic self"--the idea being that achieving one's authentic self was the proper goal of living/education/something.  Hogwash and poppycock, to use expressions common in my youth. The idea renders me speechless/wordless.

The Problems of Hemp

 The Rural Blog has a post on the problems of hemp farmers--no good crop insurance or disaster payments.

Disaster Coverage for Hemp

I'm still, I think the word is, bemused by the legalization of hemp.  The latest item is FSA issuing the rules for NAP coverage for 2020.  I don't know whether this is the first or second year for such coverage. 

I'm pleased to see the comparison of the provisions of the FSA NAP program and RMA's hemp insurance.  Almost all of the parameters are the same. Ever since the beginning of FCIC and AAA there have been complaints about the differences between the programs, most specifically the crop reporting dates.  Thousands of work hours and innumerable meetings have now been devoted to trying to resolve the differences, so it's good to see differences being resolved from the beginning.

Hemp Insurance and Bureaucracy

Farmers.gov has a page on the announcement of hemp insurance and other aspects of growing hemp.

They note the need to report acreage to FSA, including their hemp grower registration number.  I searched on that and found this page for Virginia.  Virginia, of course, requires its own series of acreage reports

IMO this is a classic instance of how bureaucratic silos develop.  Something new comes up, and existing bureaucracies are assigned the job of implementing rules/laws. But since it's likely that the new responsibility doesn't fit neatly within the scope of one bureaucracy, we get duplication. 

I'd predict that 10 years from now the Virginia Hemp Growers Association will have formed and will be lobbying for a simplification and consolidation of paperwork requirements.

More on Hemp

Two articles on hemp in today's NYTimes:

1. one in Business about the easing of some banking regs.  I'm not clear on the impact--it's apparently not clearing the way totally, because marijuana is still illegal for the Feds.
2. the other on the problems farmers have in protecting their hemp fields from crooks, who might steal thinking they're getting pot, not hemp.

According to one of the pieces there were 300,000 acres of hemp planted this year--not FSA stats but some private firm.  Wonder how that compares with FSA's figures.

Note on Marijuana

Among the things I didn't know about marijuana is that it needs a Mediterranean type of climate--hot and dry and sunny, not the sort of climate we have in the East.  This Post story informed me.

Hemp and Tobacco (and Taxis)

The Atlantic has an article using a history of the tobacco program to talk about hemp.

The history is accurate enough.  The professor points out that tobacco quotas were initially based on past tobacco production, so they tended to provide existing tobacco farmers with a guaranteed annual income (disregarding weather and similar hazards) for years.  That stabilized the regional economies.  When the program was ended there was immediate upheaval and consolidation of farms. By locking out new farmers (she doesn't note the limited provision for new farmers in the program, though the amount of quota available each year was small) it meant black and white sharecroppers lost a chance for upward mobility.

Her argument thus becomes:

"Instead of charging would-be cannabis growers for the privilege of growing, states should award licenses to a larger number of applicants from communities that have been hit hard by the War on Drugs. Much as small-scale tobacco farms anchored entire communities across the Southeast, cannabis cultivation on a human scale, rather than a corporate one, can build wealth within communities of color where opportunities to amass property have been denied—frequently at the hands of the government.

 The argument seems good, but as I've argued in other posts, the growing of hemp in the new world of legal pot (and industrial hemp) is subject to many hazards, even for experienced farmers trying to add a new crop to their operation.  If the argument was that people who had been growing illegal pot should be given licenses to grow it legally, I'd have fewer concerns.  But asking people from the inner city to grow hemp would be stupid. You'd have to have a new hemp producer program to offer financing, help gain access to land, and provide mentoring. ( I don't know the failure rate for new farmers of conventional crops, but I suspect itt's high.) That's not happening.

In the absence of such a program what would likely happen?  As in programs reserving government contracts for minority and female owned companies--you use a figurehead with the right attributes, while the real money goes to the men behind the curtain.

Hemp Problems Again and FSA/NASS?

The Rural Blog has this post.

I wonder if NASS and FSA are now taking acreage reports for hemp. A claim of more than a half million acres licensed for hemp means it's one of the mid-major crops.

And has it been added to the NAP list of crops?

Hemp Problems

The "Harshaw rule"--you never do it right the first time--seems to be borne out by the experiences of hemp growers.

Latest instance--this big suit against a seed supplier.  Turns out hemp has both male and female seeds, and only the female seeds produce plants with CBD.. So it's a big deal if your supplier only gives you male seeds when you're trying to produce CBD.

I've also seen references to overproduction, harvesting problems., etc.

New Frontiers--of Pot

JFK used "New Frontiers" as the theme for his administration, opposing the idea of new frontiers to to Fredrick Jackson Turner's idea that the frontier had closed in 1890. 

What's interesting to me is the idea of "invasive species" as a metaphor for identifying new ecological niches as the result of innovation.  The easiest example is computers, or perhaps the internet.  But we also have innovation in markets: sometimes they're fads, like emus or bison for meat or bagel shops,  sometimes they're real, like pizza in post-WWII and avocados today.

A current new frontier is legalized marijuana.  What fascinates me is how the industry will develop; will there be parallels with other agricultural commodities or will it be totally unique?
See this post from Colorado.

McConnell's Gift to KY Farmers: Hemp Price Support Loans to Follow?

Mitch McConnell will face the electorate in 2020.  Kentucky has announced 1000+ farmers have been given licenses to grow hemp. That might help Mitch in his primary in 2020 since he's closely identified with getting the approval for hemp. But the farmers are planning to grow 42,000 acres of hemp, which strikes me as possibly threatening a hemp surplus. (To compare, KY may have about 4,000 tobacco farmers and something under 100,000 acres of tobacco.)

(I don't know, but I don't think anyone else does either.  We don't know how big the demand will be, how well the farmers will do in growing hemp, how good the processing facilities will be. The Rural Blog post I link to mentions CBD oil.  I had the impression that CBD oil came from marijuana, not hemp.  I found this assertion though: ">BD is one of 60 chemicals known as cannabinoids that are specific to cannabis plants. The CBD that we use in our CBD hemp oil tinctures is made from industrial hemp, a non-psychoactive derivative of cannabis that contains insignificant traces of THC. Industrial hemp products are legal nationwide and contain less than 0.3% THC.")

So I wonder how long it will be before hemp farmers find the need for and the political clout to get price support loans incorporated in farm legislation?