Industrial hemp has long been one of mankind’s oldest and most important crops. It has a glorious history in America older than the nation itself.
Canada has a 20-year headstart in hemp, and it naturally developed an industry around the easiest existing segment: hempseed grain for food. It became 90% of Canadian hemp and hemp’s first billion-dollar segment.
In 2018 hemp was legalized in the U.S. federally after 81 years of onerous, irrational, and unnecessary regulation.
Today, the only proven, stable, 100% legal hemp market also has the largest number of current and potential consumers and wholesale customers, namely foods made from hemp grain (hempseed). It’s so important that USDA tracks the prices of them weekly (see image).
The U.S. is ideally suited for the production of prepared, value-added foods made from U.S.-grown hempseed. The customers are here, the land is here, and the infrastructure ensures low-cost transport whether across town or the globe.
The missing pieces of the supply chain are only production (farming) and primary processing (shelling/pressing). Once processed, it is ready for any restaurant or food manufacturer to use as an ingredient as-is, or for any marketer to private label. Even if U.S. hemp died tomorrow, one could brand and market hemp foods using grain from Canada, Asia, Europe, or South America.
After over eight decades of official institutionalized suppression of industrial hemp solely based on racist tropes and canards, the federal government now has an obligation to develop the U.S. hemp sector properly, like the millions of dollars we saw invested in Canada’s hemp industry. USDA/NIFA should start by funding at least one hempseed shelling and pressing facility, likely in the mid-west.
This would be the fastest way to incentivize the most acres and jump-start U.S. hemp, putting it on a sustainable and competitive footing in a real market, already developed. Bonus: at least four times more stalk than seed, per acre; an industry Win-Win.
Once that is in place, there will need to be money for Marketing, Advertising, and Public Relations. As the highly successful “got milk?“ campaign (and others similarly funded by the federal government) proved, Marketing might be the most important piece, ensuring success and sustainability for the project. To build the processing plant but not fund Marketing and PR would be a monumental mistake, thus most likely to occur at the federal level. This cannot be allowed to happen, it will be slow suicide for the industry. Either get funding committed up-front or don’t start the project. The state government where the plant is located should help as well, with liberal regulation, tax breaks, and marketing money.
Excerpt from Seedy! by Richard Rose.
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