U.S. Hemp Acreage –

80,000

Acres and Growing

Although hemp is now legal across the U.S., the message seems to be getting out slowly, and state and local authorities are still seizing hemp crops and truckers are being arrested for crossing state lines with container loads of harvested industrial hemp for processing, tying up individuals in jail and leaving valuable inventory in limbo.

Currently, nine states – Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, South Dakota, Iowa, Texas, and Connecticut – still prohibit hemp production under any circumstances. And four states – Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas – still prohibit hemp-derived CBD. “For now, transporting hemp across these state lines may still be as dangerous as it’s ever been,” reported science writer Leo Bear-McGuiness in Analytical Cannabis.

Yet, “damn the torpedoes,” U.S. farmers are saying, as they respond to soaring demand by dedicating farmland to hemp cultivation, seeing it as a potential cash crop and an alternative to growing GMO corn, soy, tobacco and other commodity crops.

According to hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp, the U.S. hemp crop tripled in 2018 to 78,176 acres, up from 25,713 acres in hemp cultivation in 2017. That figure is expected to grow now that the Farm Bill has opened the door nationwide to hemp production, says Vote Hemp. Montana emerged as the top hemp growing state in 2018, followed by Colorado, Oregon, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and North Dakota, respectively, according to Vote Hemp.

Steven Hoffman is Managing Director of Compass Natural, a Boulder-based agency providing brand marketing, PR, social media, and strategic business development services to natural, organic, regenerative, and hemp-related products businesses.

Learn More

Let’s Talk Hemp – a leading newsletter and podcast by the producer of NoCo Hemp Expo and Southern Hemp Expo

Hemp Business Journal – strategic data and information for the hemp industry

Hemp Industry Daily – news, market research and trade information

Organic Trade Association’s Organic Week –May 20-23, 2019, Washington, DC, featuring a track on organic hemp production

Southern Hemp Expo – September 6-7, 2019, Nashville, TN, the largest exhibition and conference of hemp industry professionals in the East

Natural Products Expo East – September 1114, 2019, Baltimore, MD, presenting the Natural Products Hemp & CBD Summit

Vote Hemp – representing hemp producers and advocating for hemp policy and regulation

Heavy Metal Meets Hemp: A Journey to Birmingham

By Morris Beegle

This story begins in the summer of 1971, in the attic of my grandmother’s farmhouse in Beaver, Oklahoma. I’m sure most folks are unfamiliar with this town, as today the population is still less than 2,000 people. It has one claim to fame, however: Beaver is home to the annual World Cow Chip Throwing Contest. Yes, this is a real thing, picking up hardened circular chunks of cow shit and flinging them like frisbees.

While I never competed in the event, this tiny town holds a special place in my heart, and it’s not because of my family heritage or this oddly unique annual tradition. This peculiar place grabbed me at the age of four as I was sitting in the farmhouse attic with my older brothers Dave and Brad listening to my very first Black Sabbath experience.

I can still remember War Pigs, Iron Man, Electric Funeral and Hand of Doom all off the Paranoid album like it was yesterday. This was my introduction to the greatest hard rock band in history, a rowdy group from Birmingham, England, that would change music history and play an important role in my life as I got older.

So, what does Black Sabbath have to do with hemp?

Inspiration, energy, and motivation to get LOUD about what I believe in. Since I’m discussing the mighty Sabbath, I’ll also throw in Judas Priest, another legendary Birmingham band. Both bands provided me with influence and imagination to pursue my entrepreneurial ambitions, first in the music and entertainment industries, followed by the hemp and cannabis industries.

This influence led me to printing hemp t-shirts, hemp hats, and hemp posters. Then to producing hemp events, hemp conferences, and hemp festivals. And most recently, to creating a line of hemp-bodied guitars, hemp-board guitar cabinets, hemp guitar straps, hemp plastic picks, and hemp plastic volume knobs that go to 11...because when you need that little extra push over the cliff, and 10 just isn’t cutting it, you need to take it to 11, and be #OneLouder!

This has been the Birmingham influence on my life, with a little extra help from the lads in Spinal Tap

Hemp awareness, CBD, and medical and recreational cannabis are literally blowing the F up all around the globe. It certainly is here in the United States where we finally passed historic legislation that unequivocally clarifies hemp and all parts of the plant, including cannabinoids, extracts, and derivatives, as no longer included in our Controlled Substances Act, and removes jurisdiction from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

We Americans are pretty excited about this even though we still have a big battle with the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on how this will play out in the world of food and supplements. This issue isn’t unique to the USA, as the UK and Europe and most parts of the world are struggling to figure out a path where we can free this plant in all of its forms, for not only consumption, but commercial industrial processes and regenerative agricultural practices.

This is where I have placed my efforts and intentions as I continue on my journey, one in which I get to visit a place that unexpectedly inspired me to promote a plant and a planet that both need to come together for the future of society and the future of humanity.