(WAVE/WKYT) – With the future of Kentucky’s hemp industry in doubt, one farmer is relying on luck and Congress.
Asa Phillips is about to take a $1.8 million gamble on planting 300 acres of hemp.
He said it comes with an out-of-pocket expense of about $6000 an acre for supplies, labor, fuel and fertilizer.
In the meantime, he already has barns and a warehouse full of hemp from previous harvests.
And it is getting harder and harder to sell.
“I talked to people all over the United States, and I am trying to drum up a new processor here or there,” Phillips said. “And I’m just after it every day to try to get something going and make something happen.”
Tight federal restrictions on THC content in hemp products go into effect in November — a deadline orchestrated by Senator Mitch McConnell.
It is intended to ban popular products like seltzers and gummies containing intoxicating levels of hemp-derived THC.
But multiple bills have been launched in Congress to avoid the deadline, including one from Senator Rand Paul.
“It’s a very simple, artful solution,” Cornbread Hemp co-founder Jim Higdon, supporter of Paul’s bill, said. “It allows states that don’t want to be prohibited to continue to operate, and it allows for interstate commerce among those states.”
Passage would keep hemp-derived THC sodas and gummies on the shelves, and keep markets open for hemp farmers.
“I’ve got faith we’ll get something done,” Phillips said. “But if we’re looking at it number-wise, I don’t know if it’s 50-50 chance we get something done or 50-50 we don’t.”