Full list: Agriculture in the News

by Andrew Stein
April 29, 2013
Full Article

Last week, the House Agriculture and Forest Products Committee unanimously voted to create a state-sanctioned process to grow hemp, despite federal regulations essentially prohibiting the action.

Under the bill, hemp is defined as Cannabis Sativa with a tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, concentration of 0.3 percent or less. The low-potency form of marijuana is touted in the bill for its long-standing market presence and strength in industries like textiles, clothing, bio-fuel, paper, cosmetics and more.

Rep. Teo Zagar, D-Barnard, supports the bill. “The governor likes to say we have an agricultural renaissance happening, and I think this bill could accelerate that,” Zagar said. “Hemp is an amazingly versatile, valuable and productive crop that could serve a number of needs in Vermont and give farmers a bunch of new tools.”

The House Agriculture Committee re-drafted S.157, which passed out of the Senate at the end of March. The bill would replace a Vermont statute that permits the growing of industrial hemp, but only when federal regulation permits it.

The new provision, however, runs afoul of federal regulations, and House members say Congress must step in to legalize hemp.

“We’ve got to send a message,” said Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. “This is the kind of message I think will mean something to the federal delegation, and Sen. Leahy’s committee has a hemp bill before them.”

In January, Sen. Patrick Leahy wrote to the Drug Enforcement Administration asking for information about the way in which the agency regulates hemp. Last week, Leahy received a response from Eric Akers, deputy chief of the DEA, reiterating that cannabis is an illegal, controlled substance.

“Under the Controlled Substances Act, cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance regardless of potency,” Akers wrote. The DEA allows growers to register for the the legal cultivation of cannabis with a long list of requirements.

Akers wrote that he couldn’t tell the senator how many people had sought to cultivate cannabis for industrial purposes because the administration doesn’t track the information. Since 2000, three of eight applicants were granted permission to grow hemp, according to Akers, and one of the registrations is pending until “required security measures” are taken. The other four applicants were denied because they would not install the feds’ security measures.

The registration process that the State of Vermont would impose under the House bill would be much more lax than the federal law. It would require the grower to submit to the Secretary of Agriculture his or her name and address, a statement that the cannabis variety does not exceed the state potency threshold, and the location and acreage of the hemp parcels. The bill would give the Agriculture Secretary the power to leverage an annual $25 registration fee for administration purposes.

The Vermont registration literature would also come with the following caveat: “Federal prosecution for growing hemp in violation of federal law may include criminal penalties, forfeiture of property, and loss of access to federal agricultural benefits, including agricultural loans, conservation programs, and insurance programs.”

One person who might be willing to risk such penalties is Rep. Will Stevens, I-Shoreham, who owns Golden Russet Farm.

“I’ll look into the option as part of my management plan,” Stevens said. “I’d be happy to look at it as part of our crop rotation. If hemp fits into that, fine. And if we can figure out ways to harvest it and market it, even better.”

Robb Kidd, an organizer for the advocacy group Rural Vermont, said he knows numerous farmers who are interested in the prospect. Rural Vermont has been advocating for the legalization of industrial hemp production for almost a decade. He says the bill that passed out of the House Agriculture Committee is the group’s “ideal, dream bill.”

“Times have changed dramatically,” he said. “Everybody has realized the economic opportunity. They have realized we need to get this moving, and the federal government delay is not helping.”

Correction: Rep. Teo Zagar represents Barnard, not Woodstock.

4/29/30
Charlotte Albright
Full Article and Audio

It’s been five years since hemp was declared a legal crop in Vermont. But there’s a catch. The law takes effect only if the feds declassify the plant—which is related to marijuana—as a controlled substance.

Federal law still forbids growing hemp. But a new bill with wide support would legalize hemp in Vermont, despite the federal ban.

East Thetford farm manager Will Allen has his fingers crossed.

A Willie Nelson song spills out of a boom box as a worker tends one of  fourteen greenhouses at Cedar Circle farm, where Allen works.  It sits on 40 organic acres along the river in East Thetford.

The choice of music is not surprising, because Allen says the musician is one of a handful of supporters willing to help him buy another plot of land to plant hemp. He says the group would even help pay legal bills if he gets busted by the feds.

“So as soon as the state says go for it, we’re gonna go for it. And if we don’t have to go through the Ag  department, that makes it all easier for everybody,” Allen said.

But chances are hemp growers would at least have to register with  the state  Department of Agriculture.

Allen says high-protein hemp has many healthful uses—as a nutritious oil, a sustainably grown fiber for clothing and paper, a building material, a plastic substitute, even a bio fuel.  And he notes, Canada is already tapping those markets.

“It’s grown in Montreal. I mean, hello!,” an exasperated Allen said.  “Why can’t we grow it here in the United States, right? And the reason we can’t grow it in the United States is it’s tied in with the Drug Enforcement Agency’s belief that it’s a relative of marijuana, it’s a drug.”

Under the Vermont measure likely to come up for a vote this week, to be certified as hemp, a plant could contain no more than 0.3 percent of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

That’s why Allen says hemp is not a drug and that farmers are unlikely to hide marijuana in hemp fields. He says cross pollination would weaken the THC in pot, making it less marketable. Still, he expects a visit from the DEA if he grows hemp in East Thetford.

“We know that the federal government is probably going to seize that land, and then it will be in litigation,” Allen said.

But Allen’s state representative hopes drug enforcement agents have more important things to do than to go after hemp farmers. Teo  Zagar, of Barnard, sponsored the House hemp bill that has since been expanded and approved by the Senate.  Although the Department of Public Safety warns that farmers could be put at risk of federal prosecution, the measure has drawn tri-partisan support for a crop that used to be promoted, not prohibited, by the American government.

“And so on my first day in the committee room I saw a poster on the wall. It said, ‘Grow Hemp for the War.’ It was an old World War II poster. And so I asked the committee what the status of hemp was in Vermont,” Zagar recalled.

He expects to get his answer if the industrial hemp bill passes and the governor signs it.

Zagar  knows that time is running out this session, but he believes that planting will start–if not this season, then next year.

Apr. 17, 2013
By DAVE GRAM
Full Article

MONTPELIER — Members of the state House Agriculture Committee appeared Wednesday to support allowing Vermont’s farmers to grow hemp — legislation that could put any farmers who plant it on a collision course with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The committee heard testimony on a measure that already passed the Senate in March that would give farmers the option of growing the same plant that produces marijuana.

Although plants grown for hemp are raised differently and contain very low levels of pot’s active ingredient, it remains illegal under federal law. But supporters of the bill say there’s little risk hemp plants would be diverted for the drug trade.

Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham and chairwoman of the committee, said she supports the legalization of hemp.

“I think all we’re up against is that the DEA feels this is a dangerous crop, which we’ve discovered as a committee it just is not,” she said.

Hemp is widely praised for its multiple uses as a heating fuel, provider of fabric for cloth and rope, construction material, paint and other purposes. It can grow well in Vermont’s climate with its short growing season and long, cold winters, said Ben Falk of Whole Systems Design, a farm specializing in test crops and public education about agriculture in Moretown.

With the current federal ban on hemp, “we’re tossing that agricultural option out the window. The diversification possibility that hemp offers to the state’s agricultural economy and land base are enormous,” he told the committee.

Vermont passed a law in 2008 that called on the state Agency of Agriculture to begin issuing hemp growing permits to farmers seeking them as soon as the federal government lifted its prohibition on the crop. The new legislation would have Vermont wait no longer: Farmers could begin growing the crop under state law. But the bill makes clear that they still could face federal prosecution.

“(F)ederal prosecution for growing hemp in violation of federal law 20 may include criminal penalties, forfeiture of property, and loss of access to federal agricultural benefits, including agricultural loans, conservation programs, and insurance programs,” it says.

Partridge said a few Vermont farmers may try to defy the federal law, setting up a possible court battle, but she said they should know the risks.

Lawmakers said hemp comes from the stalks of the cannabis plant and hemp plants are raised for long, tall stalk. Plants grown for marijuana, which comes from cannabis flowers, leaves and resin, are grown to be shorter and bushier.

The DEA historically has made no distinction between the two.

By Beth Musgrave
April 6, 2013
Full Article