For the past few years, American farmers have been on the lookout for a special crop. A hardy cash crop that doesn’t demand a lot resources from planting to harvesting, and one that was guaranteed to ramp up their earnings. When Congress passed the 2018 Farm Bill legalizing the growth and sale of industrial hemp and its extracts, they finally found it.
Hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant, and it had been outlawed for decades before the legislation released it from prohibition. It classified industrial hemp as cannabis with less than 0.3% THC, and instructed states and tribes to create their own hemp programs and submit them to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for approval.
THC, or delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, is the chemical responsible for marijuana’s infamous high. Hemp produces minuscule amounts of THC, so using hemp or hemp extracts won’t get you high.
Farmers interested in farming hemp would have to do so under state or tribal programs, and only after receiving the required permits from the authorities.
The 2020 hemp season started on February 1, and the South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SDCA) will accept applications for hemp farming, handling, and processing permits. The state’s hemp program is now in its third year, having grown from 20 farmers in 2018 to 114 permitted farmers and 43 processors by the end of the 2019 season.
This year’s program will have a couple of changes. First, there will be no limit on the number of permits the Department of Agriculture will issue, and there will be no limit on how much hemp farmers can grow. The SCDA will also not allow ‘responsible parties’ growing, therefore each farmer planning on growing hemp will have to apply for their own permit.
The requirements to receive the hemp farming license include; Proof of South Carolina residency; a criminal background check; $100 non-refundable fee and $1,000 permit fee; GPS coordinates of all locations on which hemp will be grown; attending an SCDA orientation and signing a Hemp Farming Agreement prior to possessing any hemp.
For the first time, the SCDA will also license processors and hemp handlers, a category that includes transporters, seed dealers, labs and others who handle hemp. There will also be separate permitting fees, facility requirements, validation inspections and certificates of occupancy.
The South Carolina Department of Agriculture will receive farming applications from February 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020, while the processing and handling applications will be available from February 1 through the year on SCDA’s website.
It remains to be seen how well the residents of South Carolina take advantage of this promising new crop, and experts believe that hemp companies like MCTC Holdings Inc. (OTC: MCTC) hope that the farmers explore the different markets for hemp and not just the CBD segment.
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