Any Illinois farm planning to grow hemp?

Heard on news last night it cost $100 to apply and $375 for one year permit to go hemp in Illinois. Many applications on first day.
News is saying hemp is going to be big business in near future.
They are planning to grow a small plot at the Illinois state fair ground.

I hope states regulate every aspect of growing, processing, making sure it us safe. Hemp plants can extract toxins from soil and that can be in the hemp oils.

FYI, less than .3% THC in hemp oil.

Saw a news report several states are outlawing Styrofoam containers. Was thinking cardboard and hemp might be the new green biodegradable replacements for many plastics.

Maybe John Deere will start making lawn mower hoods out of hemp instead of plastic so they won't shatter into pieces if anyone touches them.

Don't forget about the yellow seats that crack easy too !

The yellow seat is one reason I have a 4010 Kawasaki mule. I hate my yellow mower seat cracking.

Google how much paper hemp can produce.
It says one acre of hemp over a 20 year
period can make as much as 4 to 10 acres
of trees.

Herbicide carry-over is no small deal from what I have read as of late in growing hemp. Don't know how growers are going to deal with it if there has to be minimum quantities present of most modern day herbicides in the hemp that is harvested. Production has the potential to ramp up so quick that I doubt hemp will be highly profitable long term. Would have to be a quota system like the Canadian milk marketing plan where each grower is allowed so many tons for sale. If the processing is not covered by licensing or patents then I see great difficulty in managing supply.

There are a lot of "potential" products that can be made from it,but until those products can be made and priced competitively with existing products,they're going nowhere.

Hemp oil is also used in foods. Hope they regulate it and look for toxins.

?On an annual basis, 1 acre of hemp will produce as much fiber as 2 to 3 acres of cotton. Hemp fiber is stronger and softer than cotton, lasts twice as long as cotton, and will not mildew.?


Now tell me again why any cotton; tree; soybean; and many others farmers; including the oil industry would want hemp to become legal.

With states and cities outlawing plastics in many places they don't have to compete with them,plus I can imagine there'd be some big tax breaks for producing a car with a bio degradable
body.The things that can be made out of Hemp fiber is just getting going.

Growing Hemp is now legal in all 50 states. Dept of Ag August of 2018.
At end of 2018, Hemp oil is now legal on Federal level in all 50 states.

take google or youtube for hempcrete. or hemp concrete. excellent insulation, carbon negative and to recycle it you just till it in the field.

How long do you think that stuff will keep while you wait for a market to develop if you plant it this year? This is a real good time to walk while others are running.

Yea but on the other side how's that corn price thing doing, here still under 4? Yea, could be a deep trap that will be tuff to deal with in the long run but it is an alternative crop that could make better money than what guys are making now. Heck that old corn bean rotation might actually benefit from it too. ANd if farmers are not willing to try something else it's going to be survival of those who are big enough to make it.

Rick

Why use herbicides? Ever heard of a cultivator?

Toxic are you kidding haven't you heard on here forever how 'harmless' ag chemicals are? Why would you worry about some chemical in Hemp Oil when the food you eat is already loaded with
ag chemicals?

Why are you worried about it one way or the other since you aren't planting it? Most of the growers I know about that are contract growing are not going whole hog they are trying it out
in like 20 acres,but if it works good they are a step ahead of everyone else and also have established a relationship with the company they're growing for.

You nailed it,I think most of the Naysayers are afraid it will be very successful,sort of like dairy farmers and almond milk.

You're saying what I've been saying,don't plant it without a contract. When there's a market,processors will come looking for growers. We're on the same page here it seems. George asked who was growing it. If he wanted to know who was contracted to grow it,he should have asked that,but he didn't so I don't know if that's what he meant or not.

As far as what's it to me,I'm just getting a big kick out of reading these posts about it and reading the comments from people who don't understand how this works. They seem to think that just because the potential might be there some day,that you can plant fence row to fence row any time you want and the world will beat a path to your door. You get it,I get it,a whole bunch of people with no experience don't get it.

If I could get the seed I'd grow a couple acres just to see how it'd work,of course the last thing I need is to get into something new I've been trying to cut back for the last 5 years
so far no success with that(LOL)

If they ever come knocking on my door with a contract in hand,I might be tempted to learn more,but until then,I'm sticking with what I said in another post today, Farmers get in to trouble when they go from trying to make a living to trying to make money. lol

I would NEVER atempt to grow it contract or no contract. The ones with a contract will find the ones they have the contract for or with will be like these travling roof painters, when the paint has washed off the painters will be long gpne and same way with the ones offering the contract. So you will be sdtuck with something you cannot get rid of. Those contracts will not be worth the paper they are written on.

I am in Ky. and am going to grow an acre of hemp,for CBD. My application fee was $100.My background check was $20.My license was $400. All these expenses are to be compliant with federal drug laws-it's extra work for the Dept of Ag.Growing hemp for CBD is not the same as growing for fiber. It will harvested and cured out similar to tobacco. For my 1 acre I expect to have over 400 man hrs of hand labor. Plus time plowing and discing, and spreading lime. Then laying plastic mulch, and setting the cloned plants with a water wheel(like vegetables). To put this crop out will cost maybe $4500 or more -not sure just yet. It has a short window of harvest in late September. The Ky. dept of Ag has to certify the THC level is below.3%. The trick will be to get the CBD (canibidiol) percentage above 10% and closer to 15%, and keep the THC level below .3% Our processor pays by the pound by percentage point. Every step of planting , storage shipping(hauling),has to be documented by the Ky dept of Ag. Our processor is working very closely with us growers to grow the highest quality CBD hemp. As far as I know Ky is leaps and bounds ahead of other states in this venue. Our state has multiple processing plants for CBD. The hemp fiber market will be lower payout, but much less labor. I am more excited about this season than I have been for a long time. Mark.

Not in South Dakota. Our nnalert governor vetoed a bill to make planting hemp in SD legal. Course her husband sells crop insurance and she didn't want the husband to lose money on the hemp acres which are not insured. Only state in the Midwest to not be able to raise hemp.

Thanks for posting an explanation of the process. Always like to hear the real world from the horses mouth.
Keep us posted and Good Luck.
Jim B

(quoted from post at 16:51:20 05/02/19) If they ever come knocking on my door with a contract in hand,I might be tempted to learn more,but until then,I'm sticking with what I said in another post today, Farmers get in to trouble when they go from trying to make a living to trying to make money. lol

Click to expand...

Lot of guys around here in trouble with a corn/bean rotation too. Doing what you know when all you do is break even or maybe even operate at a loss isn't good either.

I completely agree, I wouldn't jump all at once. But I'm not going to poopoo the idea either. Gonna have to see how it plays out.

Question for you though. If you are running a business with no aim at making money, why in the heck are you doing it? Farming is a business. Country living is a way of life as a wise man once said.

Rick

Thanks for the info on the process, Mark.

I certainly welcome a new crop to add into the mix, but the claims being made and the excitement of it all is a bit bemusing.

The oil appears to be labor intensive enough and has a bit of a building fan base and market to be a worthwhile crop, but I?m pretty sure it will be licensed and regulated to where only the big compamies in charge make real money, farmers will be kept down the food chain, or income stream.... but looks like a venture worth looking into and sounds like the old tobacco areas are best suited for it.

Hemp fiber seems like a pipe dream, it was a good product with valuable properties 80 years ago, but the synthetics from rayon to nylon to fiberglass to Kevlar and everything in between has taken over those demanding uses and are far better: cotton and wood pulp are the low cost entrenched natural fibers, and we overproduce those at near breakeven cost. There is no room for another fiber product that will cost more and not offer any real benefit for mundane uses. I would be very very careful getting into fiber production, it has disaster written all over it. The potheads love promoting paper and tie dye tee shirts made from it but it?s hard to sustain a whole fiber industry on the whims of the druggies.....

I remember artichokes, emus, and so on, will save the family farm..... yea right.......

Paul

So if you weren't getting a gov't check how much profit would you make on what you are doing? Good thing about Hemp so far as I haven't heard anything about the growers getting Farm Welfare.

All Ag gets govt assistance it?s what govts do.

I don?t have to like it any more than you do, but at least we could be honest about it, if you farm the govt is going to be your partner.

Paul

I farm and the gov't ain't my 'partner' or has anything to do with my farming operation.If I needed other Taxpayers to give me a handout to keep farming I'd quit.

Mark,
I'm a user of CBD and would like you to keep us posted as to your progress growing hemp.
Some people on YT are afraid of failing a drug test if they use CBD. At 70 I don't worry about passing tests.
George.

So true! My father said the same thing to us boys many times.

That deal that Mark Robke and a whole bunch of other growers in Ky have going sounds like it might be on the level. Sounds like the commonwealth is pretty deeply involved. If some fly by night drove in claiming big numbers...let's just say I'd want to see some brick and mortar and equipment where this stuff was supposed to be going first.

Anybody who thinks they're just going to plant a bunch of this stuff and sell it when it's ripe is fooling themselves though. You can't just take it to the elevator or the sale barn when it's ready and go home with a check.

So you have no crop insurance or flood insurance???

Nope never have had either one,I built a house where if it floods you'll need The Ark.law here won't let a house be built where it floods anyway.Never have had any type of crop insurance or have never gotten any type of assistance for farming,I don't even have a clue where I'd go to apply for it.I used to get these mailings from the County Agent about these meetings where they were going to show me how to farm.I went to one one time,never got another invite for some reason(LOL)

(quoted from post at 21:13:51 05/02/19) Thanks for the info on the process, Mark.

I certainly welcome a new crop to add into the mix, but the claims being made and the excitement of it all is a bit bemusing.

The oil appears to be labor intensive enough and has a bit of a building fan base and market to be a worthwhile crop, but I?m pretty sure it will be licensed and regulated to where only the big compamies in charge make real money, farmers will be kept down the food chain, or income stream.... but looks like a venture worth looking into and sounds like the old tobacco areas are best suited for it.

Hemp fiber seems like a pipe dream, it was a good product with valuable properties 80 years ago, but the synthetics from rayon to nylon to fiberglass to Kevlar and everything in between has taken over those demanding uses and are far better: cotton and wood pulp are the low cost entrenched natural fibers, and we overproduce those at near breakeven cost. There is no room for another fiber product that will cost more and not offer any real benefit for mundane uses. I would be very very careful getting into fiber production, it has disaster written all over it. The potheads love promoting paper and tie dye tee shirts made from it but it?s hard to sustain a whole fiber industry on the whims of the druggies.....

I remember artichokes, emus, and so on, will save the family farm..... yea right.......

Paul

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Paul, just cause I'm curious. Why would hemp fiber be a pipe dream? Things like those dumb birds? Yea you have to create demand. Hemp clothing was around for centuries. Just needs to be reintroduced.

From just a little research you'll find that many people try to avoid rayon and nylon products. I did not bother to look at the reasons. But synthetic material has to be made of something and many people have lost faith in the chemical companies. They use crude oil to make rayon/nylon. Lot of folks have pushed to stop using crude oil for stuff like that.

So they know how to make hemp clothing. They were doing that a century ago. They know how to make it into paper. And unlike trees doesn't take 15 or 20 years to grow another crop. Plus people have been looking for natural fiber clothing for decades. Cotton and wool are both good sellers.

As far as chasing prices with dumb birds or hemp, what are the corn/beans guys doing today? That hasn't been going so great the last few years. Seems that started with the chemical companies promising farmers yields like they had never seen before. Someone just forgot to mention what happens when you flood the market with more than can be used.

But the question is, what? Are farmers supposed to live in poverty and not try other things? Or should they experiment and see if they can't make a little money. More than one farm has gone under farming conventional crops in the last few years.

Rick

Where?s the numbers? Let?s see the numbers.

That?s the thing, you just don?t see it. You are just as beholden as the next farmer. But you?ve proved that point over in the past.

As to the hemp, I?m all for a new crop.

I hear you need to be careful using the oil you might fail a DOT or work physical I donno just what I hear. Probably no big deal in a couple years as we transition from tobacco and alcohol to weed for all in this society, but for the moment know what you?re getting into.

And be careful getting into the production fiber market, there is a whole lot of cart before the horse on that deal. Of course im sure this time will be different.

Carry on,

Paul

I want to see an established market for it. Only small need for hemp for ropes anymore.

The media and certain west coast folk and some universities and politicians are just gushing about how hemp fiber is going to save USA agriculture.

That is just a very bright neon warning light that folk will be in over their heads on this deal.

I got into a coop that was going to make fancy looking particle board a few decades ago. Small goals, simple production, find their little market..... when they got to
production, man the wood pulp/ particle board/ plywood folk just undercut anything going on and crashed that coop down fast! It was a bloodbath.

The cotton and wood pulp lobby is large. They already make very good natural fibers, and they have a large, large supply of growers, product, transportation, export
markets, and local processing of their fibers.

So now along comes this huge wave of let?s all save the family farmer and produce hemp fiber and put it in everything, and make it a third crop to rotate with corn and
soybeans, it?s going to be huge!

Well with that kind of buildup it?s gonna be planted all over, and folks with more money than brains will invest in this wonderful product that can?t fail, after all every
politician and university and business papers are talking about it...

After a year here is this pile of hemp fiber.

Where does it go? Who is going to use it? It can make clothes, it can make paper, it can be used in concrete. Sure. But do you think the cotton folk will just go away, the
paper mills will turn down wood fiber, the fiberglass makers will stop making fiberglass?

Those products are mature, they work, they have their infrastructure in place. They can cut their price 25% to preserve their market share.

Hemp is building from scratch, gonna be a lot of big costs to get it rolling.

So we are flooded with unreasonable expectations, flooded with a rush to overproduce, and then we hit the reality of a limited market.

It?s a recipe for disaster.

Let?s say it does a slower growth, and does succeed. So, what happens to folk growing cotton, making wood pulp? Making fiberglass? You are putting them out of work,
so they either grow the hemp cheaper than you because they already have the infrastructure and access to the textile markets, or you kill off those family operations.
What did you gain? Folk lose interest in supporting hemp real fast when that reality sets in.

A whole lot of nothing.

As a small specialty market hemp fiber would be fine. It?s already used here and there. But as promoted, as 1/3 of our crop acres for the wonderful hemp.....

That?s a joke.

You might want to compare it to ethanol. It will suffer the same cycle,

Ethanol got some help form the govt to get the infrastructure in place for a decade. That all ended years ago, only thing left is the govt mandate to use it to help improve
pollution issues from gasoline, and those protections are rapidly being axed by your big oil industry. As we now produce most of our crude oil here in our own country,
the incentive to use ethanol is fading, jobs are here either way, no one really cares about the environment and the oil lobby is really good and really strong.

Hemp fiber will grow briefly and then burn out rapidly on the same curve, as the USA is a big exporter of fibers already there is very little incentive to get behind a big
hemp subsidy. More hemp,less cotton, why bother?

Public opinion and interest lasts maybe up to a decade. It takes longer then that to get an industry going.

Ethanol is a good product, it lowers pollution, it produces a small net energy gain, it allows use of cheaper crude products to blend with high octane ethanol making our
gas supplies larger and cheaper. And still, it is fading away because big oil hates it, and public opinion is fascinated with big suvs now and doesn?t care about the rest.

Hemp fiber was a cool nitche market. As a major crop, it has no reason to exist other than politicians and wild public opinion favors it for a brief moment. The market
doesn?t support it existing.

Maybe I?m wrong. It?s fine if I am. I?m all for a new crop.

If you have dollar bills burning a hole in your pocket, be really, really careful investing in hemp fiber? Cart before the horse.

Paul

So explain how I am 'beholden' to anybody much less the gov't?Everyone isn't in the same rut you have picked for yourself.

Ethanol ain't making it because it screws up fuel systems and ruins gasoline.The ethanol mandate has probably done more to hurt the image of farmers with the general public than any one thing.Your take on the Hemp Industry is a total joke based on nothing but your imagination and hot air.The fact is its impossible to really figure what happens but there are a whole lot of smart
people that have made a lot of money in the past betting on its future.So to dismiss all that is ridiculous.There are over 35 growers signed up to grow Hemp for fiber in my area so it'll be
interesting to see what happens this year.

Paul. Maybe you should do a little research.

Lot of folks, far to many to call it a niche market, want clothing made from natural fibers at a reasonable price. Big item here is kids clothing. So there is a market and it's growing.

As we speak people are jumping ship on a lot of things. Consumption of corn based products is down. Pop sales have really taken a hit of the last 10-15 years. Folks worried still about GMO's. And they feel like that they can no longer trust the farmer, the manufacturer or the chemical companies. And it's growing, not shrinking.

Got a local woman here. Not what you would call real bright. Young mother is what she is. Has a 5 years old boy. She reads labels. Nothing that she knows has corn syrup. Nothing if she can help it that may contain GMO's. This isn't some college chick trying to be cool. The is a rural US girl, right here in MN simply trying to be a good mother. I'm not saying shes right or wrong. But this is what you are facing. Not some college kid trying to save the planet. Not PETA protesting outside at KFC. A young mom who gets to pick where she spends he food money. The way this girl is if she had access to kids clothing made from hemp she'd buy it if she became convinced it was better for her kid. And there are a lot of folks out there who are picking. They are saying no. You think they care if you ridicule? Not one little bit. These are also the folks who are reading the latest stuff on pollution and "green" fuels. They ain't buying it anymore. What if hemp oil starts to replace soy oil? Where are you going to be then? What's considered conventional now may not stay that way and wasn't conventional 300 years ago.

Rick

For most of my life I have watched the small family farm die. 150 -200 acres handed down several generations with maybe 40 cows and making a fair living supporting a family. In 1 generation that is all but gone. To think that another change in AG can't or won't happen is silly. I'll be watching and hope to still be alive when this all plays out. 2000 acre crop farms and 1000 cow milking operations just don't seem sustainable or good for the environment.

I am semi retired, but I would have a discussion with my employer if I was subject to drug testing. I was a truck mechanic, and was subject to random testing. Frankly CBD works too well not to use it, and I use it-a lot-. It is better than any NSAID-easier on your kidneys. I would have take a lot of pills to ease my aches and pains if I did not have CBD.

Our processor originally wanted just a few growers. But as he checked around to sell processed CBD, more and more demand arose, and so he needed, and now has over a hundred growers signed up. We are a small county-small acreage farms-lots of ridgeland-most farmers relied on tobacco. We farm the ridge tops, and graze the hillsides. But tobacco is going out. Our processor wants to revitalize the family farm. And CBD hemp will do it. Tobacco growers past and present are signed up. We have the barns and strip rooms. Tobacco growers are used to a labor intensive crop, and CBD hemp is labor intense. Mark.

(quoted from post at 16:47:57 05/03/19) For most of my life I have watched the small family farm die. 150 -200 acres handed down several generations with maybe 40 cows and making a fair living supporting a family. In 1 generation that is all but gone. To think that another change in AG can't or won't happen is silly. I'll be watching and hope to still be alive when this all plays out. 2000 acre crop farms and 1000 cow milking operations just don't seem sustainable or good for the environment.

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I think the thing people have to face here is that small farm is dead. What was once a "sustainable farm" isn't sustainable anymore. People want more for themselves and their families that to work sun up to sun down, married to a herd of cows with the kids wearing hand me downs. Don't matter if we like it or not. How many takers do you think you would get if you all of a sudden brought back those 32,000,000 or so farms? I saw a lot of kids in the early 70's running as far as fast as they could from the farm. They wanted a decent income and a nice car and an 8-5 job with a could of weeks vacation every year. And even if you did get 32,000,000? How many would stay with it through the first year? Heck of a lot of people would love to live in the country but other than watching someone else's cows in the pasture that's about a farm as they wanna get. We have moved on from being a people content with sustaining a way of life to people who want life to be easier and better.

Rick

Come on down to Central Virginia you'll see a lot of small farms with lots of young people working them.Farmers Markets are full of people selling produce, homemade crafts,small animals etc.
Very few people do it for 100% of their living but almost all farmers in my part of the World have had other enterprises and jobs to help make a living.These folks don't mind working and love just being out doing things ag related.Just across the river from me two farms across from each other totally different both started up in the last 10 years.The one has about 100 head of sheep on a couple hundred acres,the other owned by two women grows about 3 acres of beautiful flowers to sell,plus they own a restaurant that ties in with the flowers.Young fellow has about 35 Honey bee hives at my place and also has hives other places says he's sold over 100 nucs or starter hives this Spring.Farming here can be interesting and a great social experience with things like the farmers markets,winery festivals,gardening expo at Monticello every Fall,numerous events.I have people drive in all the time to see my goats especially when they have the little kids,can sell all the young does I raise locally and haul the young bucks up to the Winchester Livestock market every December.So i'd say small farming is definitely alive and well in my area and growing.

That?s called hobby farming.

Yea they don't do the things 'real' farmers do like dump tons of poisons on the land,collect Farm Welfare because they can't make it without a gov't handout,grow GMO crops that ruin the
gasoline and feed the Chinese military and factory slave labor.And these folks get off their azz and do something for themselves rather cry the blues about how tough it is for 'real' farmers
these days.BTW a Hobby Farmer is one that can't figure out how to make a living on their farm and needs for the gov't to dole them out some money to keep their farm operation going.Real Farmers pay their own bills and don't require a cash infusion from the Taxpayers to keep going.

This farm is real enough to generate 6 digit net income in 2018, hardly anything to cry about.

I love the idea of a small "hobby farm" providing folks with a second income and kinda keeping people in touch with where stuff comes from. I also like having the choice to buy local. In the right area it can make a good living albeit with long hard hours of hands on, not from the comfort of a tractor cab, fingers in the dirt kind of work. There still are a few that don't mind doing that sort of thing. I do think it's a young persons game tho, not something to start when you're 60.

Doesn't matter how big it is if you are getting gov't money you're still on welfare.