Texas urged to get over hump on hemp
Farmers cite jobs as federal OK puts pressure on state legislators
Now that Congress has OK’d the sale of hemp — legally separating the fibrous plant from its more laidback cannabis cousin — Texas farmers are prodding state lawmakers to join the 41 other states allowing cultivation of a crop that’s now more lucrative than corn or cotton.
The 2018 farm bill, a fiveyear, $867 million agriculture and nutrition-program spending plan that passed the U.S. House in a landslide last week, allows farmers across the nation to legally grow and sell hemp.
“If we have the availability, and everything is in order, I would probably plant (hemp) this coming summer,” said West Texas rancher Jeff Williams, who sits on the board of directors of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable and chairs the newly formed U.S. Hemp Farmers Alliance. “Quite frankly, in Texas, we’re behind the eight ball as we speak, because so any other states have legalized it.”
Kentucky is one of them, and the state’s senior senator — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — has been a champion of clearing the hurdles to cultivating hemp. With the dwindling number of tobacco users, his state’s farmers
needed a new key crop. At the turn of the 20th century, Kentucky produced 75 percent of U.S. hemp fiber. Production faded as tobacco became king, and the 1970 Controlled Substances Act roped hemp in with marijuana and made it illegal.
With President Donald Trump’s signature — he’s expected to sign the farm bill this week — hemp and its cannabinoid derivatives and extracts will no longer be categorized as an illegal drug. Instead, the plant will become a commodity eligible for federal support programs such as crop insurance, low-interest loans and access to federal water.
“These products are now regulated as agricultural crops,” said Shawn Hauser, an attorney who represents the American Hemp Campaign. “That is a federal change that certainly impacts Texas and all other states directly.”
It’s a huge deal considering hemp production and hemp wares are expected, within the next five years, to grow from a $700 million industry to $20 billion.
“In addition to providing farmers with a valuable new crop, it will fuel job creation across a variety of different business sectors,” Hauser said. “There are currently more than 25,000 uses for the hemp plant, and we have only scratched the surface. There is incredible opportunity here.”
Hauser said the ideal path for Texas is getting pilot programs set up. That way farmers can experiment with seeds and soils while the U.S. Department of Agriculture writes the federal rules for growing and selling hemp.
If Texas lawmakers don’t take action on hemp in their 2019 session, farmers could grow it once the federal law is finalized.
“It seems like there is a lot of support for a hemp program, a hemp economy in Texas,” Hauser said. “And legislators are working. They’re further discussing a bill that would allow for cultivation and production and meet the minimum federal standards.”
State Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a staunch social conservative, surprised many observers with a Dec. 6 news release in favor of growing hemp.
“This all about taking the shackles off the American farmer,” he said. “In today’s economy, our farmers need maximum flexibility to diversify their production and thrive.”
Before its nearly five-decade prohibition, hemp was a source of fiber for use in clothing, paper, canvas and other products.
Of late, one of the plant’s byproducts is feeding a market of elixirs that use cannabinoid oil, a non-psychoactive chemical found in the cannabis plant that is believed to have healing powers.
Williams believes Texas hasn’t experimented with hemp production because state lawmakers still think legalizing the plant is essentially legalizing marijuana.
Like marijuana, hemp is a variety of the cannabis genus, but the two plants are different. Hemp grows tall and spindly while marijuana is shorter and densely packed. More importantly, hemp has nominal amounts of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive compound that caused cannabis to be outlawed as a perceived danger to society.