Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogel Bomb and in fields across the United States,
Speaker 1: hemp is about to take over. It was once a
Speaker 1: staple of revolutionary age farms. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and
Speaker 1: George Washington all grew it, and caretakers at Mount Vernon
Speaker 1: still reap it. But it was banned for decades in
Speaker 1: the United States for somewhat unfortunate association with its party
Speaker 1: hardy cousin cannabis. But now that Congress has passed a
Speaker 1: new farm bill that contains provision that will legalize and
Speaker 1: regulate the plant, hempfields are poised to start edging out
Speaker 1: some of America's more traditional crops, from corn to cotton.
Speaker 1: The hemp plant holds great promise for belaggered farmers everywhere,
Speaker 1: though for many it remains largely misunderstood. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Corey Sharp, the CEO of Hemp Logic, which provides services
Speaker 1: from seed to sale. The website claims to fledgling hemp farmers.
Speaker 1: Sharp said, my web traffic quadrupled right after the farm
Speaker 1: bill passed. I'm getting fifty emails a day when I
Speaker 1: was getting ten. I get asked this all the time.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like a gold rush? Yes, it absolutely
Speaker 1: feels like a gold rush. And I'm the guy supplying
Speaker 1: the shovels and the wagons and the supplieseen law allowed
Speaker 1: the growing of hemp by states and some universities for research.
Speaker 1: The year before, forward thinking Colorado allowed a farmer to
Speaker 1: grow a hemp crop, the first in decades in a
Speaker 1: closely watched experiment. By seen nineteen states were growing hemp
Speaker 1: on some twenty five thousand acres, about three times more
Speaker 1: acreage than the year before. Now, with the passage of
Speaker 1: this new farm bill, the shackles are off sharp predicted
Speaker 1: it's going to blow. It's wide open. It's the wild
Speaker 1: wild West. We also spoke with Eric Steinstra, the president
Speaker 1: of the advocacy group Vote Hemp. He said that in
Speaker 1: seventeen growing hemp was an eight hundred and twenty million
Speaker 1: dollar industry in the United States and that in ten
Speaker 1: years there's no telling how much that might balloon. Quote,
Speaker 1: We're going to see a multibillion dollar industry. We're going
Speaker 1: to see hemp become a full commodity where it's not now.
Speaker 1: It's not a huge crop, not traded on the exchanges
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I think we will see markets
Speaker 1: developing products in new ways to use this crop in
Speaker 1: ways previously not thought of. I think we're going to
Speaker 1: see this become the number one crop in the United
Speaker 1: States eventually. I believe that the rise of hemp may
Speaker 1: come and cost two crops that require lots of water
Speaker 1: and pesticides like cotton, soybeans, and corn, and the allure
Speaker 1: of hemp is strong for many reasons. It grows more
Speaker 1: quickly than crops like corn, but with less water and
Speaker 1: fertilizer and less need for herbicides and pesticides. Sharp however,
Speaker 1: cautions that while it can grow like a weed, it
Speaker 1: must be controlled for the crop to have any value.
Speaker 1: He said, I always tell people you want to grow
Speaker 1: two hundred acres, grow too. You have to be very,
Speaker 1: very careful with the passage of the farm bill. Hemp overcomes,
Speaker 1: at least for many, a huge stigma its association with cannabis.
Speaker 1: The two come from the same plant, Cannabis sativa, but
Speaker 1: sharing a species doesn't mean that they share a genome.
Speaker 1: A vote Hemp points out that Chihuahua's and St. Bernard's
Speaker 1: share a species too. Cannabis and hemp were lumped together
Speaker 1: in the Marijuana Tacks Act of ninety seven and again
Speaker 1: with the Controlled Substances Act of nineteen seventy, but hemp
Speaker 1: doesn't contain nearly the levels of the psychoactive ingredient tetra
Speaker 1: hydrocannabinal or th HC, the stuff that creates a high
Speaker 1: that cannabis does. Hemp is less than point three percent
Speaker 1: t HC, according to the Ministry of Hemp. The hope
Speaker 1: from hemp backers and future hemp farmers is that with
Speaker 1: this new provision in the Farm Bill, hemp will again
Speaker 1: become legit in people's eyes, and that its myriad uses
Speaker 1: will benefit all as a food of fuel, or its
Speaker 1: fibers being spun into clothing or used in construction, just
Speaker 1: to name a few. Steinster said, it's kind of amazing
Speaker 1: how far we've come. All of a sudden. When we
Speaker 1: started on this, people like politician Mitch McConnell had a
Speaker 1: beef with us. They absolutely did perceive this as being
Speaker 1: somehow connected to marijuana legislation. It took a lot of
Speaker 1: just basically knocking on doors, sitting in meetings, and crafting
Speaker 1: the message, focusing on the economics of this, the potential
Speaker 1: for farmers and businesses, and that was a message that
Speaker 1: resonated with members of Congress. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: John Donovan and produced by Tyler Playing. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other practical topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com.