Posted February 19, 2014
Kentucky agriculture commissioner, James Comer,
recently announced five hemp pilot projects across the state, according to an
Associated Press article available here.
The newly enacted federal farm bill allows state
agriculture departments to create hemp-cultivation pilot projects for research
in states that already allow the growing of hemp.
Each pilot project “will be paid for by private
contributions and will focus on different possibilities for hemp,” according to
a USA Today article available here. In Louisville, KY, the state’s Department of
Agriculture will oversee hemp farming on an “as-yet-undetermined former
industrial site to see whether the crop can help clean tainted soil.”
Chris Poynter, spokesman for Louisville Mayor Greg
Fischer, “said hemp can help pull many contaminants out of the soil of former
industrial sites, a valuable step toward potentially redeveloping so-called
brownfields.”
Other projects include: a study of a “Kentucky heirloom
hemp seed;” a project in conjunction with Murray State University to examine
how European hemp seeds grow in Kentucky; a Central Kentucky pilot program with
the University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University, focused on
production cost and machinery for planting, harvesting, and transportation; and
a project through the University of Kentucky focusing on cultivating hemp for
medical research.
For more information, a recent report on hemp as an
agricultural commodity from the Congressional Research Service is available on
the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
