There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding the re-emerging industrial hemp crop in Texas at the start of the year, but now that harvest is complete and more questions have been answered, growers are pleased with the results.
Hemp hasn’t been widely grown in Texas for 80 years, and while three licenses were issued by the Texas Department of Agriculture in the Panhandle and 33 licenses in the Lubbock region, some growers sat this year out to see how it goes for others.
Kyle Bingham, president of the Texas Hemp Growers Association, has worked on growing new crops and commodities before, and found that hemp has been one of the easier crops to grow.
“Hemp loves to grow out here in our climate and heat,” said Bingham. “We had 12-foot tall plants that were taking over the field, it was a jungle out there.”
There was a bump in the road during the summer when scorching temperatures reached over 110 degrees for more than a week. Texas A&M AgriLife’s State Hemp Specialist Calvin Trostle previously told the Avalanche-Journal that some seedlings died during that time.
Bingham was testing a variety of seeds on his farm in Meadow from different areas that could match the West Texas climate, including some from Oklahoma and Colorado. Two of the varieties, Joker and Yuma, were his most successful plants.
A key to the success was the help from Delta Ag, the largest producer of hemp raw goods in the U.S. and a partner in growing 4,000 acres across Colorado, Kentucky and Texas this year. Delta Ag has supplied the equipment needed for preparing the product for market, and growers used their same equipment to harvest so there wasn’t an extra cost there.
Their help has been very useful to growers, which Bingham said is a big difference from out-of-state sellers trying to take advantage of growers by selling bad seeds or giving them exaggerated promises about market outcomes.
“Delta Ag understood how to manage the risks and build a sustainable system, compared to some growing systems that seem like a borderline scam,” Bingham explained.
Bingham said that some farmers were initially enticed by the CBD aspect of hemp production since it is a fast-growing market worth billions, but that’s also part of the problem for growers. The U.S. market for CBD calls for 30,000-40,000 acres of medicinal hemp, but nearly 300,000 acres are licensed.
“It’s a niche market that’s flooded,” said Bingham. “If you have a buyer lined up, then there’s value in the product, but if you don’t and hope someone is there, it’s just not going to happen. A lot of growers got burned doing that.”
With the crop still being cleaned for market, Bingham couldn’t estimate how many acres were grown just yet, but was happy with how it looked so far. While he said farmers may not get $40,000 an acre with hemp, it could still be triple the average earnings for cotton crops.
Since they are encouraging farmers to grow more for grain and fiber than CBD and growers have a better idea of what to expect, producing next year’s crop could be smoother.
“We had to understand what was real and what makes sense with growing and prices and more,” Bingham explained. “We had a really good crop so far. I think farmers will be able to adjust quickly.”
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