Hemp Acres Rising in Kentucky

The Blue Grass state is looking at hemp to generate a little green. Testing is accelerating on hemp as a potential American cash crop, so Kentucky farmers are planning to produce up to three times more hemp than they did last year.  The Kentucky State Department of Agriculture says it approved 209 grower applications last week, meaning growers can produce up to 12,800 acres of hemp for research purposes this year.  That’s a substantial jump from last year’s 4,500 acres.

The state of Kentucky has been out front in efforts to get hemp approved as a cash crop. Experimental projects began back in Kentucky during 2014 with the planting of 33 hemp acres.

Growing hemp without a federal permit was banned in 1970 because it’s classified as a controlled substance related to marijuana. Hemp and marijuana are the same species, but the difference is hemp has a negligible amount of THC, which is the chemical compound that gives marijuana users their high.

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