Hemp will be a big crop very soon thanks to the 2018 farm bill!

The 2018 farm bill will change everything for hemp production in the United States http://www.cobizmag.com/Trends/The-Significance-of-the-2018-Farm-Bill-for-the-Hemp-Industry/. Don’t mix up hemp with marijuana because they are very different plants. Hemp in some countries is used for cloth, oil, food etc. Hemp was an important plant in the United States until marijuana and other drugs became a problem in this country. This is a hemp harvest in the Netherlands https://youtu.be/GJKnz9hlB3Q.
Medical marijuana has also been legalized in many states. Please don’t rush out and prepare to grow hemp without checking all the laws and visiting with your county extension office. Let us know what you think about hemp comeback. If your not familiar with the 2018 farm bills impact on hemp read the provisions section in this article 2018 United States farm bill - Wikipedia . The president discussing the 2018 farm bill https://youtu.be/jckk9ulb6OY. The Canadians have legalized many such crops in recent years https://youtu.be/mUs--6DAlaA. Australia has partially legalized hemp https://youtu.be/Bi10RfHffZM. Many people are familiar with the billions of dollars the 2018 farm bill will generate. Hemp does not need herbicide or pesticide or as much water as many crops. It can be used to make fuels, beauty products etc. . Very soon farmers will cash in on this crop. CBD oil from hemp is another lucrative business right now that has just started to develop.

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No doubt it will be new and difficult at first but it has been grown in this country before very successful up until the time it was outlawed. A crop that is not gmo, is a grain for animal and human consumption, does not need chemical, can be used for textiles, can be used for healthcare products, preserve trees, used for cooking oil, used for biofuels, used to prevent errosion, etc sounds very good to me. It’s going to be a learning curve for everyone for awhile though.

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Hoping I can grow it as a cover crop, if there is lots of red tape it won’t be worth it.

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Here is an experimental hemp crop (allowed
By the 2014 farm bill Industrial Hemp | National Institute of Food and Agriculture) grown in the Dakota’s which was harvested as a grain https://youtu.be/w7mbTT6Jf_M. It looks like there will be a lot of red tape at least for awhile. Small cover crops may not be legal at the moment but there are ways this crop will benefit many people directly or indirectly. Having a crop not drenched in herbicide and pesticide will be nice. It’s very likely cost of certain goods will go down. Investing while hemp companies are in their infancy may yield large returns later. The yields were over 1100 pounds of seed per acre without fertilizer or additional water at $1 per pound and that’s just for the seed in the video. Imagine the profits if you harvested the stocks for cloth and sold some products e.g… cooking oil retail instead of wholesale https://youtu.be/WZhp-mI3-Yk

A lot of ditch hemp still growing wild in northern Indiana, remnant of crops grown for war use in the last century. Clearly this is suitable ground for it.

My concern would be too many people rushing in to glut the market

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There is some hemp being grown here in Montana now. No ideal of the acreage or yield.

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last year was the 1st time I’ve seen it grown in Maine. a farmer nearby grew 100 acres of it. was weird driving thru the fields. the cannabis growers are pissed as its pollen is carried for long distances. fertilizes their plants and ruins their smoke.

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I’m sorry, but that’s funny!

I’m one of those who thinks a little pot is probably at least an OK thing, some of the right pot might be good medicine, and that there’s probably a lot of very strong stuff grown with utter disregard for anything except profit, by folks who are Not Very Good Neighbors and which is being used by people who shouldn’t be doin’ that. I tried it a half-dozen times, if that, forty some years ago; it was no doubt an altogether different crittur back then.

Now I’m glad it’s being got out where it can be at least managed and regulated. We’ll see how it plays out.

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Hemp processing plant in Winchester KY has been going full bore all fall apparently.
Senator Rand Paul got the first industrial hemp past the Feds.

As an aside, I got a free package of “natural” nematode fertilizer in the post yesterday…for use on hemp to help with root born nematodes.
Unsolicited by me. (And I don’t grow week, nor the legal kind either.)

So, yeah, it’s attracting money in more way than one!

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For this who don’t know about hemps prior history in this country you might like the old WWII war effort videos https://youtu.be/d3rolyiTPr0. This video does a good job of exposing some of the useful things about hemp https://youtu.be/ZavHPQ8ZCLE

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The WW2 “Hemp for Victory” campaign was necessary because it had effectively been made illegal a decade before WW2, nylon replaced most cordage in the country but the navy still needed real rope and the trade for sisal and other tropical fibers that they were relying on had become unreliable due to the war. So farmers had to be convinced to grow hemp again, no doubt many were still unhappy about hemp being made illegal under the unfamiliar name of marijuana. The history is really, really dodgy.

I’m excited I guess, been following the situation for a very long time but never considered that it might be legalized but still impractical for me to grow it.

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Darn. I tore out my hemp forest to plant apples and pears too soon :slight_smile: That stuff piled into a mountain disappeared into a nice white cloud. Just missing the THC otherwise Cheech and chong would have been happy.

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I went to an industrial hemp growing seminar sponsored by the agg department last year. I was not impressed by the profit potential for the grower. License cost and seed cost were very high so someone is making money - but not the growers. The economics may have changed but I don’t believe I’m going to jump in.

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recreational was legalized here 2 years ago so there isn’t any pot dealers anymore. lots of people growing it themselves. you see fenced of areas in thier back yards with the plants tops showing. the medical weed business is still doing well as some people need it and can’t grow themselves. i tried it in h.s but didn’t care for it either. i have a fellow vet that fought in iraq that suffers ptsd. i grow a few plants for him in my greenhouse. weed grows great in there!

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Hooray for hemp! I have Cannabis sativa (seeds) every morning as a part of a healthy diet. I have been waiting all my life for the government to stop this ridiculous ban on this amazing plant.

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i think over time that will change. still to ‘‘new’’.

I used hemp protein powder in my smoothies a few years ago. Also hemp oil has been available. I don’t know where it was farmed.

Twas ever thus

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People need to butt-kick those useless gits in Congress and get that removed

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Some of you might find this article interesting:

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