INDUSTRIAL HEMP: UNCLE SAM STILL JUST SAYS 'NO'

HOLDREGE -- There's an alternative crop that could be the answer to
some of Nebraska's water supply and rural economic development concerns.

It adapts well to Nebraska's soils and climate, uses less water than
corn or soybeans, and the right hybrids can produce more oil for
biodiesel. Its fibers can be processed into cloth and plastics.

There's only one hitch, according to Marvin Havlat of Milford. That
crop is hemp.

Federal laws don't make exceptions for hemp hybrids used for
industrial purposes, he said, even though they don't contain THC, the
chief intoxicant in marijuana.

Havlat was invited by Chairman Ed Schrock of Elm Creek to speak to
the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee in Holdrege Tuesday
during a break between hearings on two interim studies.

Schrock had tried a couple of times during his legislative career to
get an industrial hemp bill passed in the Unicameral.

Havlat said the United States is the only industrialized nation that
doesn't have a hemp industry. France had 250,000 acres of it last
year, and England is perfecting technology to turn hemp fiber into cloth.

"There are other ways to handle the water in this state rather than
growing water-thirsty crops," Havlat said. A benefit of hemp
cultivation is the plants' ability to draw nitrogen from soil, so
hemp planted after corn could use residual nitrogen before it gets
into groundwater.

Switchgrass has received a lot of attention recently as an
alternative to corn as the raw product for the ethanol industry that
requires less water. Havlat said it can take three years to establish
a switchgrass field, but only four months to grow a mature hemp plant.

An acre of hemp could produce 6,000 pounds of oil, he added.

Havlat said he'd like to see cooperatives set up hemp biodiesel
stations all along Interstate 80. "It would be an economic boom to
farmers," he added.

"Can Sen. Schrock legally grow hemp on his farm?" asked Sen. Jim
Cudaback of Riverdale.

"He can, but he can't harvest it," Havlat said, referring to federal
laws that trump statutes passed in some states to allow industrial
hemp production.

Schrock said roadblocks to changing the federal laws include drug
issues linked to marijuana and lobbying by big oil companies that
don't want competition from another alternative fuels crop.

"Until the federal government does something, all the states are
whistling 'Dixie,'" he said.

As the discussion ended, Schrock joked, "When you come to a Natural
Resources Committee hearing, you never know what you're gonna get."