Hemp, the cousin of marijuana that doesn’t get you high, will soon be grown industrially in Louisiana.
Licenses to grow hemp will be going out in a couple of months to farmers looking to get in on the gold rush in CBD.
According to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate, more than 500 farmers attended an LSU AgCenter meeting on hemp farming to learn more about the hemp industry and the associated products made from CBD.
There’s so much buzz over the potential for hemp a Houma farming family has established a processing plant in Colorado and purchased the former printing house of the Houma Courier to convert it into a CBD extraction lab.
Courier Labs will import hemp from Colorado to Louisiana for processing until the in-state harvests get up to speed in late 2020.
Courier Labs Michael Thompson says hemp will provide a steady tax base for Louisiana and will come in handy should there be another drop off in oil industry.
Despite the optimistic attitude about hemp production, the downside is its reputation as a cousin of marijuana and the tight regulation on its production.
Federal law mandates farmers must keep their THC level below .3%. Anything higher and entire crop will be destroyed.
“We hope to deregulate some of this stuff as time goes on,” says Lester Cannon with the Louisiana Agriculture and Forestry seed programs director.
