14 minute read
High on hemp: Florida’s new crop takes off
High on hemp For hemp, CBD is just the start. Bigger things lie ahead for Florida’s new field crop – and Ocala is at the forefront.
BY BRAD ROGERS PHOTOGRAPHY BY RALPH DEMILIO
Mention hemp these days and most people think CBD. And, for now, CBD – short for cannabidiol, a close cousin to marijuana – is the face of the hemp industry that is taking root here in Marion County and elsewhere around Florida. But industry experts say in the not-too-distant future the number of hemp-based products will not only expand but likely change entire industries. CBD will be but a small piece of the hemp pie.
After just one year of allowing Florida businesses to be licensed to legally grow, process and sell hemp-based products like CBD, there is optimism about the future.
Holly Bell, the state cannabis director for the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, gushed about the progress the state has seen since last April when licenses were first issued.
So far, there are about 7,000 retailers offering mostly CBD products, 300 hemp processors and 18 extractors. Plus, more than 90 permits have been given to colleges and universities for research purposes.
Yet, hemp is still a start-up business and an experimental crop whose viability and practical uses are still being discovered and developed, said Bell, a former bank executive and entrepreneur.
Over the next decade, though?
“Nothing is a huge crash crop when an industry is just starting up,” she said. “Five years from now, will we be having a different conversation? Oh, yes.”
But for now, the emergence of hemp as an agricultural commodity is being welcomed in Ocala.
OM talked with four people who are at the forefront of the hemp revolution in Florida and Marion County.
A FARMER’S DAUGHTER IS FIRST
Robbie Ergle is the daughter and granddaughter of farmers who still have a farm in McIntosh. Ergle left a long career as a teacher and then a college professor to launch U.S. Hemp & Oil, a CBD processing and distribution company that operates out of a warehouse on Ocala’s northside.
Ergle, who got her state license as soon as the state began issuing them, was the first CBD processor in Central Florida, and it was intentional.
“As a start-up, we wanted to get out front,” she said about her brand, Mother’s Original CBD. “It’s one of the few businesses where there wasn’t any competition.
“And CBD is not going away. They’re doing more and more studies and they’re all positive.”
These days it’s the health benefits of CBD that Ergle and others in the hemp business tout. The say CBD products can help ease anxiety, cure insomnia and, as Ergle puts it, “help your body heal itself.”
The CBD market is growing exponentially, according to Bell and others, and U.S. Hemp & Oil strives to be at the forefront of a new industry.
“We focused on extraction, because that was the need,” Ergle said. “The farmers
Robbie Ergle of U.S. Hemp & Oil
were ready to grow, but there weren’t any extraction centers.”
Survey the U.S. Hemp & Oil facility and you’ll see massive plastic bags of hemp “flower,” ground-up hemp plants that will be processed for the oil they contain. It takes about 20 pounds of this flaky material – it looks like marijuana – to make 1 liter of hemp oil, the main ingredient for making CBD products. The oil is then frozen to remove any fats, and what is left is a thick, sticky syrup that Ergle describes as “like a melted Jolly Rancher, very sticky.”
Once processed, it is tested, tested and tested some more, said David Reese, Ergle’s right hand who runs the processing operation. He tests for CBD and THC levels – by law the THC level can’t be more than 0.3 percent – and potency. Those test results have to be reported to the Florida Department of Agriculture.
Ergle said while CBDs are growing in popularity, there remain a lot of questions among the general public about the difference between hemp and marijuana, which are part of the same plant family. The simple answer is, hemp does not contain THC, the ingredient in marijuana that gets people high.
David Reese
“There’s so much confusion,” she said. “I have to assure my friends all the time that it will not get them high.”
Then Ergle returns to talking about CBD’s positives and potential, both as a wellness product and an economic opportunity.
CBDs can be taken topically, as a cream or oil, or they can be taken orally, either as a food or as an oil. While many already tout its healing properties for everything from anxiety and insomnia to chronic pain and headaches, Ergle is excited about what possibly lies ahead.
She pointed to numerous studies being conducted that are examining the potential of CBDs to address childhood epilepsy, tumors and memory loss.
“I love to learn,” Ergle said. “I always like a new venture. I’m always looking for something to challenge myself. So, when this came up, it was a way to help people.”
Coming from a family of peanut and citrus farmers – her father has a small patch of hemp now, though – she also saw her venture as a way to boost agriculture in her hometown.
“Our mission is to grow the agricultural economy here in Florida, to keep the Florida famer prosperous,” she said.
Ergle the teacher is now the student, and she said that is where most people in the hemp business find themselves these days.
“I think it’s a learning curve,” she said. “They call it weed, but it grows around the world. It is hearty and adaptive. It has so much potential.”
BASED IN OCALA, BUT THINKING GLOBALLY
Jeff Greene agrees with Ergle and is working to establish his niche in the hemp market by not thinking just locally or even domestically. Greene, who owns Ocala-based Greene’s Reserve, is turning hemp into snuff that he believes will help longtime dippers wean themselves off tobacco, and even possibly reverse lip, mouth and throat cancer caused by long-term chewing and dipping of tobacco.
Greene, an entrepreneur and former lobbyist who helped get the Florida Legislature to pass the law legalizing hemp production and processing in the state, started his company in an old meat packing plant north of Ocala nine months ago. Today, his crew is producing 2,000 cans of hemp snuff a day – in wintergreen, natural and menthol flavors – but he expects that to jump to 8,000 cans a day by this month and 14,000 cans a day by the end of July.
But it’s just a start. Greene has plans to build hemp snuff plants in Dallas and Las Vegas as part of a global marketing plan as more and more customers come on board.
The Ocala plant would serve markets in the eastern U.S., Europe and Africa. Dallas would serve the nation’s midsection, Canada and Latin America. The Vegas plant would serve the West Coast and Asia. Greene’s Reserve is already on Amazon and is trying to get on Alibaba, China’s version of Amazon.
He is waiting on machines to be built in India so he can go to full automation, at which point he forecasts being able to produce 90,000 cans a day.
Is he surprised by the quick growth of his product?
“Just the mass acceptance we’ve had has been encouraging,” he said. “About nine out of 10 people who have tried our product have liked it. I’m amazed by that.”
Greene said customers report that not only does the dip relax them – not unlike other hemp-based CBD products – but they also find they can quit tobacco easier when they use it.
“It’s the oral fixation that’s the addiction,” he said.
The next step for Greene, beyond expanding his manufacturing capacity and going global, is the formation of Greene’s Reserve Pharmaceutical Co., which its owner says will create pouches of snuff that will be marketed as treatment to reverse lip, mouth and throat cancer caused by tobacco. He said the National Institutes of Health have done studies that suggest hemp can reverse cancer and repair damage to the skin.
Greene is rolling the dice on creating a global product and brand, but he is confident he will pull it off.
“I don’t think it’s a fad,” he said, adding that more and more research is being done to find practical uses for hemp, both for wellness and for other purposes.
“If cannabinoids are in their infancy, (hemp) fibers are in the womb,” he said.
Hemp crops at CF
CF's Tavis Douglass
A TEACHING TOOL
Learning about hemp is the newest part of Tavis Douglass’ job at the College of Central Florida. Douglass, a fourth-generation Marion County farmer and CF’s agribusiness program manager, is overseeing the college’s newly launched industrial hemp program.
“It’s a new and emerging crop in Florida,” Douglass said as he looked over a garden of hemp plants. “What’s interesting is there’s no record of hemp ever being grown in Florida.”
CF, which received its license from the state in April, is the first among Florida’s 28
Holly Bell
community colleges to study hemp production.
“We’re using it as a teaching tool,” he said. “And, frankly, people are interested in it. We’re just trying to set a baseline right now on how to grow it.”
Douglass and his students have two patches of hemp growing at the college’s Vintage Farm Campus – one outdoors, the other in a greenhouse.
Douglass sees a lot of opportunity for his ag students, because hemp provides both an alternative crop for Florida farmers and further diversification for the state’s farm economy, which has seen dramatic declines in production of such traditional big-money crops like citrus and tomatoes.
Like Ergle’s CBD extract, Douglass must test his plants to ensure they do not exceed the state-mandated 0.3 percent THC limit placed on commercially grown and used hemp.
As for hemp’s impact on agriculture, Douglass said it could provide more than a new income source for the region’s farmers. In addition to being a cash crop, he said hemp can be used as a high-protein livestock feed and, of importance in the Horse Capital of the World, as a horse bedding alternative to wood shavings.
For now, though, Douglass said there are lots of questions about what type of hemp will grow best and under what circumstances.
“They might die in the summer rain, or they might grow this tall,” he said, holding his hand over his head. “We really just don’t know. But we’re going to try and find out.”
OPTIMISM FROM FLORIDA’S CANNABIS CZAR
When Florida legalized hemp as a commercial crop in 2019, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services was tasked with overseeing its development. So, it surprised many when Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried tapped Holly Bell as the state’s first director of cannabis.
Bell, who grew up on an Indiana farm and was once crowned that state’s Cow Queen, has a degree in agricultural economics from Purdue University. Most of her career, however, has been spent in banking, financial consulting and as an entrepreneur – not farming. Plus, she was an out-of-stater.
Bell, however, embraced the new job and the new crop and today is an unabashed promoter and is equally enthusiastic about its future.
“This is a quality, premium product,” Bell told OM.
Yet, she acknowledges that “it’s not going to be corn or soybeans overnight.” But over the next half decade, she predicts hemp will become a game-changer that could transform some industries from plastics to building materials to textiles.
She gives some examples that could cause a “paradigm shift” in three of Florida’s biggest industries: agriculture, hospitality and construction.
Florida, she said, is the nation’s largest cow/calf producing state. Nonetheless, it ships a large percentage of its calves out of state for “finishing” because the state simply does not produce enough traditional feed for them.
Hemp, as Douglass noted, can be used to produce a high-protein feed that Bell believes could change the Florida cattle industry and increase profits.
Textiles is another area where Bell sees potential for a distinct change. Hemp fibers can be used to make fibers and, in turn, textiles. Bell said a Jacksonville woman has developed towels and sheets using hemp fibers. Because they require less water to wash and less heat to dry than traditional fabrics, Bell believes Florida’s hotel industry, which uses mountains of towels and sheets every day, is a perfect market for such goods. Oh, and the fabric is biodegradable, as opposed to today’s fabrics, many of which are made with plastic-based polyester.
The problem at this point, however, is the lack of manufacturing infrastructure. The Jacksonville entrepreneur now has to get her towels and sheets manufactured in China. When the manufacturing machinery is in place in Florida, Bell expects the hemp textile business to take off.
Finally, Bell cites something called “hempcrete.” Hempcrete is a concrete-like material made using hemp fibers and, based on research, it is as durable as traditional concrete, just cheaper to make and is biodegradable once it is demolished.
Asked if these products that are in their infancy can become dominant in their respective markets, Bell didn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely,” she said. “It’s a wave coming across the country. People want it. It’s coming… but we have to get the fiber side going – the hempcrete and the clothing.”
But, she added, “It’s going to go on for a generation. It’s going to just grow, grow, grow, I think.”
Hemp products will become more and more popular as public awareness and education expand, Bell said. She said because the federal government limits THC levels in hemp to 0.3 percent and Florida-grown hemp is regulated “from cultivation to retail,” including the food safety arm of state government overseeing CBD extraction and distribution outfits, public confidence and the demand for hemp is only going to grow.
The result, Bell believes, will be to boost Florida farming, businesses and employment. In its first year of issuing hemp growing and processing licenses, Bell said the industry has already created 9,000 jobs in Florida – and that is predominantly in CBD-related commerce.
Bell’s boss, Agriculture Commissioner Fried, believes Florida can lead the nation in hemp production.
“The stakes are really high here in our state to get this right,” Fried said last year in announcing Bell’s appointment. “Studies show that Florida can be the number one state in America for medical marijuana and to help involve and bring up this industry.”
And Bell believes it is well on its way, starting right here in Central Florida.
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