The New Jersey Department of Agriculture announced that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved New Jersey’s hemp farming program.
One of the biggest things that they will do to oversee legalized hemp farming is to ensure that no psychoactive hemp with more than 0.3 percent THC becomes available to the public. This can be somewhat difficult to do. If hemp has more than 0.3 percent, it must be destroyed.
THC is the chemical that gets an individual to feel high with psychoactive effects after consuming cannabis. The new thresholds will create a new market for hemp derived cannabinoids.
The program had to be approved by the USDA before the formal hemp industry began growing. New Jersey received one of the first state approvals in the country from the USDA, along with Ohio and Louisiana.
To grow hemp, farmers must receive licenses to do so from the state. There will be no limits on the number of licenses that can be allotted.
“The only thing they have to do is register their plots, their fields, or their indoor facilities,” said NJ Agriculture Secretary Douglas H. Fisher “We have to know what they are growing and where. But there’s no limit.”
Wide-spread hemp growing was legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill. Every state that wishes to have hemp grown needs to submit a plan to the USDA on hemp growing.
NJ & Federal Hemp Industry Growing
In 2019, farmers grew 500,000 acres of hemp versus only 112,000 acres in 2018.
Previously, New Jersey had an industrial hemp program that restricted cultivation solely for research under the 2014 Farm Bill.
New Jersey’s hemp farming did not expand much in 2019. It thus remains quite small compared to other states that jumped on the hemp bandwagon.
As this type of farming expands, so does the equipment needed. This includes looking to neighboring states for these resources. For example, Delaware companies may be needed to help house the growth and other plants.
Because hemp is such a nascent industry, there is an insufficient number of hemp facilities to turn it into products. This might become a serious issue if farmers grow hemp they can’t sell.
Hemp has many uses in textiles, fibers like rope, paper, building materials, oils, dietary supplements, and food, among others. It also has a great deal of bipartisan support since socially conservative farmers are greatly in favor of it.
Moreover, it grows well in Kentucky, home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Thus, McConnell is a great advocate of federally legal hemp while otherwise opposed to cannabis reform.
The Nuances of Hemp Farming
The distinction between hemp and cannabis is very fine. They are both really cannabis, the proper Latin name for the plant. They’re really the same plant, though, over the course of many generations, they have been bred to look slightly different. Hemp is said to be more related to Indicas than Sativas.
Before being outlawed as part of the War on Drugs, hemp cultivation and processing was a big business in the United States.
George Washington reportedly grew hemp as it was a common cash crop at the time. Unfortunately, there is no record of him nor any other Founding Father enjoying the pleasure of smoking it.
At one point in the United Kingdom, farmers were required to grow hemp so that it could be used to make ropes for rigging the ships of the Royal Navy.