Pubdate: Fri, 16 Oct 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Thad Moore

AN OLD CROP RISES IN THE SOUTH

Industrial Hemp Makes a Comeback As Tobacco's Profitability Wanes

For more than 100 years, Jane Harrod's family set aside a corner of 
their farm to grow tobacco. The 20 acres they grew when she was a 
girl was only a fraction of the 400 acres the family owned outside 
Lexington, Ky., but it promised good money - about $1,000 an acre.

"Most all of us farmers raised some tobacco," said Harrod, 63. 
"Tobacco definitely put the clothes on our backs when we were kids."

But tobacco isn't the reliable cash crop it once was. That has Harrod 
and hundreds of other farmers across the South revisiting a plant 
from deep in the region's past: industrial hemp.

Known as marijuana's non-potent cousin, hemp probably won't replace 
the billions of dollars that tobacco once provided, but proponents 
such as Harrod say they're willing to take a chance on a crop they 
hope will breathe new life into the South's family farms.

Those efforts have faced resistance from law enforcement groups that 
worry that hemp farms could be hiding acres of marijuana, which would 
become harder to detect.

The South has largely resisted legalizing pot, even for medical use. 
(Medical marijuana is legal in 23 states, and recreational pot is 
legal in four.) But in states where tobacco once reigned supreme, 
industrial hemp has come back into vogue.

Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia are 
among the 20 states that have enacted laws allowing researchers and 
farmers to revive the long-forbidden plant. And late last month, the 
North Carolina legislature approved a proposal to do the same; that 
bill is on the governor's desk.

The end of federal subsidies for tobacco in 2004 and decreasing 
popularity of smoking have wiped out much of the crop's prominence 
and profitability. The United States grew $1.8 billionworth of 
tobacco in2014, a far cry from its peak in 1981, when the country 
produced $3.5 billion worth, according to the Agriculture Department.

In Kentucky, 60,000 farms once grew some tobacco, mostly family 
farmers looking to make extra money, said Will Snell, an agricultural 
economist at the University of Kentucky. Now, only 4,500 do, as 
large-scale production has taken on a bigger role and family farmers 
have been pushed out of the business.

Hemp's backers acknowledge that the plant probably won't fill the gap 
left by tobacco, but they hope it will give farmers such as Harrod a 
new, potentially lucrative option.

The Hemp Industries Association estimates that Americans bought $620 
million worth of hemp products last year - including clothing, 
building materials and food made with hemp seeds, said Eric 
Steenstra, the industry group's executive director.

"It's not the replacement, but it's part of the solution," said James 
Comer, Kentucky's agriculture commissioner, a Republican who 
sponsored the state's hemp bill when he was in the legislature.

The crop has set off something of a gold rush in states such as 
Kentucky, where hundreds have applied for permits to grow it, Comer said.

Harrod said she will apply to grow five acres next year. She and her 
siblings stopped growing tobacco in 2002 as the crop was in decline 
and their mother died of lung cancer. Other alternatives, such as 
vegetables, hogs and cattle, haven't made up the difference.

Hemp's relationship to marijuana has helped fuel some of the interest 
in the crop. The two plants are different varieties of the same 
species, Cannabis sativa, but instead of producing a high, as 
marijuana does, hemp can be turned into material used in clothes and 
building materials.

Supporters pitch hemp as something of a miracle crop - a plant that 
can be used to make car parts and cannabidiol oil, a chemical that's 
thought to help people with severe epilepsy.

Hemp once reigned in the South. Harrod says her grandfather grew it 
during World War II. She figures her ancestors grew it back to her 
farm's founding in 1804. But it hasn't been grown widely since the 1950s.

"We used to believe in this plant so much," said Tennessee state Rep. 
Jeremy Faison, a Republican who sponsored the state's bill to 
legalize the plant. "In the Southeast, you're going to see it be a 
part of our future, just like it was a part of our past."

Still, the politics haven't always been cut-and-dry.

State lawmakers have complained that resistance from federal law 
enforcement has slowed the plant's reintroduction and kept farmers 
from planting their seeds on time. (The Drug Enforce-ment 
Administration referred questions to the Justice Department; a 
department spokesman did not return a request for comment.)

In North Carolina, state Sen. Stan Bingham, a Republican, faced 
similar opposition when he pitched industrial hemp a few years back. 
When police groups came out against the bill, he dropped the issue.

"I just gave up on it because I couldn't get it passed," Bingham said.

But this year, he tried again. Looser federal rules on hemp helped 
ease the process, and the law enforcement groups didn't put up a 
fight. It passed the legislature last month by a large margin.

"They had some very conservative members that I would've thought 
would've voted against this no matter what, but they didn't. They saw 
the job opportunities," Bingham said. "There's just a lot of things 
that can be done with this, and I hope we'll have a bright future."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom