
Tobacco out, hemp in for Tennessee farmers - jelliclesfarm
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tobacco-out-hemp-in-for-Tennessee-farmers-14059023.php
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oflannabhra
> So those folks are used to managing a high-value crop, a high-labor crop,
> managing a lot of labor...

> You use the same resources if you do tobacco as you do hemp. You have the
> same tractors, the same planting equipment. You have the same regimen to get
> the plant ready for the year. Popping your seeds are the same and doing all
> that

Clearly, the biggest driver of this shift is CBD oil. Here in KY, there are
tons of shops opening up, but also production facilities. Millions of dollars
have poured in (lots from CA) to process hemp into CBD products.

It makes me wonder what would happen to our economy were farming marijuana to
be legalized. All these areas have years of history growing high labor cash
crops, and even though a lot of that infrastructure is gone or shrunk (tobacco
warehouses, etc), the skill is still there.

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jrace
Just wait until they find out you can make paper from hemp, at a much higher
yield than with trees - and a much quicker regrow rate.

it is not just CBD that can come from hemp

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darkpuma
Hasn't industrial hemp production been legal in _most_ of the world the whole
time? And hasn't importation of hemp products (e.g. rope, or tshirts, or
whatever) been legal even in America the whole time?

Surely if hemp was going to outcompete popular modern fibers, it would have
done so by now. What am I missing here?

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iamtheworstdev
What changes now is that people will be growing hemp in mass for CBD and be
left with all of the pulp as byproduct to be sold on the cheap. Which in turn
may spur more hemp products. Whereas before your help business model was
considerably different and likely not as profitable.

~~~
darkpuma
Okay that makes more sense. How far does that stretch though? Will the CBD
industry really get so large that their waste product truly competes against
cotton or synthetics? I can't help but feel hemp is destined to be a niche
material for nearly all applications.

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Animats
Finding something to do with agricultural waste is useful. There's so much of
it already. Doing it profitably is hard. People have been trying hard for a
century. Henry Ford was into this.

It's possible to make something like particle board from bagasse, the waste
from sugar cane. But it's never become big. Corncobs and corn silk are
available in huge quantities, but other than animal feed, not much is done
with them. The energy input, processing cost, and transportation cost usually
defeats this, because what you get out is usually a low-value product.

~~~
iamtheworstdev
But in that same regard its part of why many foods have cellulose in them.
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/10/329767647/fr...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/10/329767647/from-
mcdonalds-to-organic-valley-youre-probably-eating-wood-pulp)

They get government assistance in the name of reducing waste. Hemp could see
the same relief.

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drdeadringer
I wonder if there is anything similar going on in western Massachusetts, e.g.
the Pioneer Valley area including such towns as Hadley and the surrounding
areas, where tobacco barns are not an uncommon sight.

Perhaps a change has already started but I am currently personally unsure; for
better or worse I moved away a good number of years ago due to college and
work and have yet to move back [should that be in my future or desires].

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User23
Hemp growing has a long tradition in the USA:
[https://www.mountvernon.org/george-
washington/facts/george-w...](https://www.mountvernon.org/george-
washington/facts/george-washington-grew-hemp/)

"At one point in the 1760’s Washington considered whether hemp would be a more
lucrative cash crop than tobacco but determined wheat was a better
alternative."

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jscheel
Interesting. I live at ground zero in this article, but I haven’t noticed much
hemp. I’ll have to go out and look a bit closer at the fields this weekend.

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iamnotacrook
Why do Americans always call it hemp or, more frequently, marijuana? It's
cannabis.

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jelliclesfarm
One is cannibis indica and the other sativa. Marijuana has THC and CBD. Only
one kind of hemp is grown for CBD..no THC. The rest is called industrial hemp
for paper/fiber etc.

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derrasterpunkt
It is still the same plant. „Marijuana“ is made from both, India and Sativa,
or from a hybrid of both. You can even buy hybrids that are made from indica,
sativa and ruderalis. Also, in the EU, farmers have to buy their cannabis seed
every year. It is not legal to use the seeds produced from the harvest of last
year. Because over a few generations the THC content in the „hemp“ rises and
to stay under 0.3% new seeds are required.

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nugga
I wonder how legislating such low thc content affects the viability of
(industrial) hemp because I seem to recall reading that for example higher thc
may help protect the plant against pests and possibly affect other qualities
of the product as well as having synergistic or other medical qualities when
combined with cbd and other cannabinoids in oil or other forms.

Are we gimping the potential of hemp by clinging to the war on drugs reefer
madness mentality?

