Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles says the number of hemp products sold last year were more than three and a half time shigher than in 2017. The amount farmers were paid more than doubled.
Quarles offered the industrial hemp economic report Monday at the University of Kentucky. With the federal action to remove hemp from the controlled substances act, Quarles says other states will move more heavily into hemp, but he feels Kentucky can remain the leader.
“The industry is going to grow. It’s important that Kentucky maintain and build a critical mass of not only the production but also the processing. And, the states that win and unleash the economic development of this crop will be the states that got started early like Kentucky,” said Quarles.
Quarles said it’s unclear if hemp will completely replace tobacco in Kentucky. He says some farmers have made more money from hemp than burley, but others have lost money growing hemp.
Chad Rosen, with Carollton’s Victory Hemp Foods, believes the upward trend in hemp products in just beginning. “The market for plant-based proteins is hard to quantify, but we think it’s about $5 billion and it’s grown 15 percent annually. And we contrast that against the dairy industry, which lost 5 percent last year. And that’s giving way to plant-based alternatives,” noted Rosen.
Quarles says farmers are deciding whether to put hemp into a crop rotation or add it to an existing operation. He says hemp processors reported almost $58 million in gross product sales last year compared to $16 point seven million in 2017.
Quarles says 50,000 acres are approved for growing hemp this year, more than three times compared to last year. The ag commissioner says hemp will be grown in nearly 100 of Kentucky’s 120 counties this year.
Weku's Stu Johnson spoke with Cahd Rosen with Victory Hemp Foods following the news conference in Lexington Monday.
