On this week’s Hemp Podcast, we talk to Geoff Whaling from the National Hemp Association, who recently returned from a trip to Africa.

The trip, funded by a USDA Emerging Markets Program grant, focused on developing hemp exports to Malawi, Rwanda and Ghana.

The purpose of the trip, Whaling said, “was to undertake a review and to report back to USDA as to the barriers for exporting American grown hemp products into those three countries.”

In Malawi, he met with government officials, including President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, who Whaling said was impressed with the economic potential of hemp in improving food security and creating industry.

One of the barriers Whaling found is that hemp is not on the World Food Program and USAID’s ingredients list.

That exclusion will hinder the export of hemp-based nutritional products from the U.S. to Africa, Whaling said.

Whaling also talks about the Lancaster County Hemp Circuit that took place last month. Whaling was instrumental in bringing Betsy Londrigan, the administrator of USDA’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service, to the event.

Whaling said her presence at the circuit signaled USDA’s interest in supporting the hemp industry, with potentially billions of dollars of funding available to the industry through Rural Development programs that Londrigan oversees.

Also on this week’s show, we follow up on that white deer Steve Groff saw on his way to the Cornell Hemp Field Day.

As you might have guessed, there’s more to the story.

A lot more.

An Army base. Nuclear warheads. An encampment of protesting women. A fence. A herd of inbred deer.

Who knew one white doe would be such a can of worms.

Thanks to our Sponsors
IND HEMP

King's Agriseeds

On the latest episode of the Hemp Podcast, we take the show on the road once more — this time to Cornell University’s Hemp Fiber and Grain Field Day at the Agritech Campus in Geneva, New York.

Among the many voices on this episode is Christine Smart, director of Cornell Agritech, who’s leading groundbreaking work on hemp diseases and crop resilience.

Hailee Greene, a recent Cornell MBA grad and founder of GreeneAcres Processing, talks about her ambitious plans to establish the first full-scale hemp-processing facility in New York, despite the financial challenges that lie ahead.

“We’re a couple million dollars away, which is probably the story of everybody that says they want to do processing at this point,” she said.

I also spoke with Maciej Kowalski, a Polish hemp entrepreneur who just wrapped up a trip around the U.S. to learn more about hemp processing.

He highlighted the disconnect he sees in the U.S. between farmers and textile manufacturers, stressing that fiber quality must start in the field.

“The textile people don’t care about what’s happening in the field, and the cultivators don’t care about what happens afterward. That’s not the way to make a good product,” he said.

Shelby Ellison, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is working to collect and preserve feral hemp genetics from across the U.S., preserving the genetic diversity of hemp, which can be used to breed more resilient and adaptive varieties.

So far, she and her team have collected more than 1,500 individual plant samples across 14 different states in the U.S.

Pennsylvania hempcrete builder Cameron McIntosh talks about the growing interest from federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, in addressing not only operational emissions but also the embodied carbon in construction materials.

We also hear from Pennsylvania hemp farmer Steve Groff, who shares a remarkable story about seeing an albino deer on his drive to Geneva.

Groff’s white deer might be a good omen for the industry, but it’s definitely a good omen for this episode of the podcast.

IND HEMP

Mpactful Ventures

Forever Green

Music by Tin Bird Shadow

MORTON, Minn. — The Lower Sioux Indian Community celebrated the opening of its new hemp-processing facility with a full day of hemp education and demonstrations on September 5, 2024.

This processing plant brings the tribe one step closer to what it calls “Seed to Sovereignty,“ where the tribe creates its own supply chain: growing the hemp to be processed in the facility, where it will be made into hempcrete houses to address the housing crisis on the reservation through agriculture.

This week on the Hemp Podcast, we bring you conversations from the Lower Sioux.

We’ll hear from Danny Desjarlais, project manager and leader of the building crew; Kristi Shane, Tribal Council treasurer; Robert Larson Jr., hempcrete mixmaster; and the “Earl of Hemp” himself, Earl Pendleton, who for many years has been the tribe’s vision holder for hemp.

We’ll also talk to Mary Jane Oatman, executive director of the Indigenous Cannabis Industry Association and a member of the Nez Perce Tribe of the Columbia River Plateau; Rob Pero, founder of Canndigenous and a member of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians; and Nick Hernandez, founder and CEO of Makoce Agriculture Development in Porcupine, South Dakota, and a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and a citizen of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Plus, Ken Meyer from Complete Hemp Proeccsing and Derrick Dohmann from Horizon Hemp Seeds, North Dakota hempcrete builder Matt Marino, Minnesota inventor Bob Albertson, broadcaster Dan Lemke from the Linder Farm Network, and more.

News Nugget:

Newsom says hemp industry is ‘a disgrace’ for not policing itself over intoxicants

Thanks to Our Sponsors!

IND HEMP

AMERICHANVRE

Forever Green

Music by Tin Bird Shadow

In this week’s episode of the Industrial Hemp Podcast, Lancaster Farming talks with Jean-Eric Ponthou from Hemp-It and Robin Destiche from KonopiUS.

Ponthou is the manager of sales and development at Hemp-It, a French company established in 1965 that produces certified industrial hemp seeds.

“It’s the only company in France producing certified industrial seeds at international standards,” Ponthou said.

Located about 180 miles southwest of Paris, the company has 30 employees at the headquarters and works with a co-op network of nearly 150 farmers to produce about 2,000 tons of hemp seed annually.

“It’s a co-op company,” Ponthou said, “which means every farmer has one share in the company, so we’re all equal.”

He said Hemp-It produces about 15 different varieties of industrial hemp, and each of these varieties targets some specific market segment: grain, hurd or fiber.

According to a 2023 report by Textile Exchange, France is the largest producer of hemp fiber by volume in the world.

Destiche is one of the founders of KonopiUS, a seed distribution and agronomy company in Virginia, and he has been working with Hemp-It for several years.

Destiche explained how Europe operates from a database of approved varieties, varieties that have already been tested for morphology, stability and THC.

“I think currently there’s over 100 hemp varieties that are registered,” he said.

Hemp-It has also developed several varieties of hemp that contain no THC.

“This way, we open the gate to the food industry, because we can guarantee to get them the lowest the rate of THC as possible,” Ponthou said.

THC is the naturally occurring chemical compound in the hemp plant which at higher levels cause the psychoactive affects associated with marijuana.

THC-free varieties of hemp grain might be a way forward for hemp grain producers who took issue with last week’s historic vote by the American Association of Feed Control Officials to allow hemp seed meal as an ingredient for feed for laying hens.

Various international groups said the THC thresholds in the feed definition were too low and would be hard to reach.

Maybe THC-free grain is the way to go.

Learn More:

Hemp-It

KonopiUS

Thanks to our Sponsors

IND HEMP

Forever Green

Mpactful Ventures

Music by Tin Bird Shadow

Our guest this week is Danny Desjarlais, head builder for the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Morton Minnesota, where the tribe is undertaking one of the most ambitious hempcrete building projects in the country.

Desjarlais said his community is has been experiencing a housing crisis. No so much homelessness, he said, but overcrowding—extended families all living together in small, poorly constructed houses on the reservation.

But with hempcrete, he sees a path forward to provide respectable, comfortable, dignified housing for the people of the Lower Sioux in an efficient yet timely manner.

In the past two years, Desjarlais and his crew have completed four hempcrete houses and a retro fit of an existing house. More hempcrete houses than most communities in the world, but still it’s not enough.

“Our main need here in the community is housing. And so we really need to make a difference,” he said. “And even four houses, five houses a year isn't going to make a big enough impact for what we need.”

A recent census of the community determined the need was closer to 200 houses, which would more than double the number of houses on the reservation.

One of the issues with building in Minnesota is the weather. Desjarlais said winter starts late and ends early, so there is a limited window for on-site construction, which is why the tribe is planning to make prefab houses from hempcrete panels—4' by 8' sections of walls that can be built in a facility and then assembled on site.

This is the plan the tribe is working towards. To that end, they have developed a processing facility that will be opening soon, so they can be self-sufficient. They’ll grow the hemp, process the hemp, and build houses for their people.

The hemp houses and processing facility will be on display to the public on September 5, 2024, when the tribe is hosting their inaugural field day.

Also, on this episode, we hear from Morgan Tweet and Andrew Bish from the Hemp Feed Coalition moments after AAFCO voted to approve hemp as a livestock feed for laying hens.

Learn More:
Lower Sioux Indian Community

Thanks to our sponsors:

IND HEMP

Forever Green

Music courtesy of Tin Bird Shadow