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Hemp industry building checkoff taskforce

The hemp industry is moving forward with the next steps to start a national checkoff.

After a nationwide survey found more than 80 percent of farmers and processors support a national referendum, the National Industrial Hemp Council and Hemp Industries Association are leading efforts to create a taskforce to determine how a program can support promotion and research needs.

John Johnson, board chairman of National Industrial Hemp Council, tells Brownfield it could take up to two years before the hemp industry is ready to submit a national proposal.

“There’s a lot of questions need to be answered by our hemp industry before we could actually formalize a draft proposal to USDA,” he says.

The taskforce will also need to determine what kinds of funds are needed to tackle hemp goals and at what point of sale the assessment should be collected before setting a proposed rate.

“We want representation of every segment of our industry whether it’s fiber, grain, oil, what have you,” he says.  “We want representation geographically, we want Oregon, we want Kentucky.”

The groups say the checkoff would be a self-governing board of growers and processors with a vision for how to promote and educate about hemp in all of its forms and support needed research from farm to fork.

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