August 22, 2016 - "Madison County, just east of Syracuse, New York, is home to the first legal industrial hemp crop in the state in 80 years.
And thanks to a bill signed into law on Friday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the cultivators will be allowed to sell it under an existing pilot program, according to the Journal News.
The bill was necessary because the 2014 law that launched the current hemp crop only allowed farmers and universities to grow the plant for research purposes.
JD Farms, which is working hand in hand with Morrisville State College on the project, is ready to start talking to companies interested in purchasing its harvest.
“This bill makes it possible for us to negotiate price-points with interested buyers and produce statistically relevant data about the current state of the market for other farmers and institutions interested in participating in the program,” JD Farms co-owner Dan Dolgin told the paper.
While not growing as quickly as the marijuana market, a hempcomeback is underway across the country. And many in the industry expect that it will only get bigger with time, given hemp’s versatility. For example, it can be used to make nearly anything, from food to clothing to car parts."
August 26, 2016 - "A pair of recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates have packed up, moved to Chicago, and raised $4.5 million to launch a first-of-its-kind trading platform for industrial hemp.
The duo said traditional markets have overlooked hemp, Crain’s Chicago Business reported. And the two are off to a solid start, having won regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission for a portion of their company, Seed CX, to become a swap execution facility.
The two twentysomethings also hope to become a “designated contract market, or essentially a futures exchange,” the paper reported, which would allow them to expand the trading platform beyond industrial hemp and into other “unique, rapidly developing” agricultural goods including organic wheat, corn and soybeans.
Despite all the jokes and ribbing likely to go along with any business incorporating the same plant used in marijuana, they emphasize that their trading platform is related to a version of hemp unlikely to get anyone high. The seed and oil commodities that will be the basis for contracts traded on their platform are used in plastic, food and oil products."
October 13, 2016 - "Want to grow hemp? Kentucky might be a solid bet – especially because it’s among the nation’slargest hemp crops, one that is expanding.
The state’s Department of Agriculture is now accepting applications from anyone interested in participating in the 2017hemp-growingpilot program, which will likely result in thousands of acres being planted, if 2016 is any gauge.
This past year, the state authorized up to 4,500 acres of industrial hemp to be grown, but only about 2,350 were actually planted, WTVQ reported. Although that number may sound small, the program began with just 33 acres in 2014.
Hopeful hemp growers need to get applications to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture by Nov. 14, and an outline of requirements can be found on the agency’s website.
The application fee costs $50, and applicants can’t have any drug-related misdemeanors or felony convictions from the last decade. There’s a background check, and GPS coordinates of any proposed grow site must be included in the application."
August 5, 2015 - "I’m with Todd Howard and Nathan Hall, a couple of young East Kentucky agrohustlers. Nathan is like a neo Johnny Appleseed or something. During his time as a reforestation coordinator at Green Forests Work he helped to fill strip-mined land with thousands of native trees. He plays the drums. He thinks in tree time. He’s on summer break from Yale where he’s getting his MBA so he can come back to the mountains and kick all the evildoers in the balls.
And Todd is a farmer. By choice. Which is what makes him so dangerous. His parents were in the coal and natural gas business, so he calls himself a Natural Resources Baby. He was raised like most of his neighbors, he says, “Eatin’ that coal and drinkin’ that gas.” He spent 10 years working in the industry himself before making the decision to devote his life to farming.
Now he’s the man.
If his hands aren’t in the soil he’s working with farmers markets and CSAs to make sure that his way of doing things, the right way, becomes the norm and not the exception."
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