HIGH TIME TO GROW HEMP IN KENTUCKY?

Kentucky bourbon must have made state farmers “lethargic,” Anita Roddick
said yesterday.

“Where are the thousands who should be here?” the English businesswoman
asked a crowd of about 100 at the fourth annual meeting of the Kentucky
Hemp Growers Cooperative Association.

Roddick, founder of the Body Shop cosmetics company that markets hemp
products, drew a standing ovation when she urged farmers to “start bloody
challenging your legislature” to pass a law like those in Hawaii, Minnesota
and North Dakota to legalize hemp production.

Roddick and other speakers at the meeting, which appeared part education
and part pep rally, said industrial hemp -- once Kentucky’s No. 1 cash crop
- -- could be the answer for farmers needing an alternative to burley tobacco.

The main problem is hemp’s similarity to marijuana, although it lacks
enough of the chemical known as THC to give smokers a high.

Various parts of the hemp plant, which can grow 10 feet in height, can be
ingredients in building materials, car parts, plastics, clothing, cosmetics
and food items, such as the coffee served at yesterday’s meeting.

Roddick and others see hemp as a way to save the family farm and the rural
way of life from the threat posed by the decline of tobacco as a cash crop.

“What the hell is the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) doing denying
farmers the right to grow a crop ordained by the Almighty,” she said
yesterday. “There is so much stupidity I think the script was written by
Monty Python.”

Lexington Mayor Pam Miller said Kentuckians must overcome their fears of
being considered “drug-pushers” and work for a state hemp law.

“Kentucky ought to be in the forefront of this and not bringing up the
rear,” Miller said.

Switching crops and developing new markets is risky, she said, but “this is
a risk that makes sense for Kentucky. This is the kind of thing we know how
to do.”

Jean Laprise, founder of Kenex, Canada’s largest hemp company, also said
that Kentucky, because of its history with hemp, should be a leader in a
movement back to the crop. “I can’t believe you are not,” he said.

In Canada, Laprise said, the government has approved 15 varieties of hemp
that farmers can plant using approved seed. Crops are tested annually at a
cost to the farmer of about $100 to make sure THC levels remain low, he said.

Although some special equipment is required, hemp can be produced with the
same equipment and facilities used by tobacco growers.

The crop is cut, dried for about three weeks and rolled into round bales,
much like hay, that are trucked to processing plants.

Most farmers contract with processors who have buyers and markets for
processed hemp. Setting up a processing plant is relatively simple, Laprise
said. Developing markets for the processed hemp could be much tougher.

A farmer in the audience asked Laprise if there were problems with
trespassers stealing leaves off hemp plants at Kenex farms.

“It happens, but it’s not that big of an issue,” Laprise said. Thieves
quickly learn that hemp is not marijuana, and they leave the hemp alone.