Nebraska is perfectly suited to grow hemp, and the state could see millions of dollars invested into developing the hemp industry here and more millions once the production and processing of the crop gets up to speed.
That was the pitch given to state legislators in 2019 as they worked to shape a bill that would bring Nebraska in line with the federal legalization of hemp production contained in the 2018 Farm Bill.
But five years after then-Gov. Pete Ricketts signed the Nebraska Hemp Farming Act into law, a Nebraska hemp industry has failed to materialize and, in fact, statistics show it steadily declined since its optimistic origins.
There are now only 24 licensed hemp producers in the state, less than one-fifth of the 125 licenses that the Nebraska Department of Agriculture has issued since 2019.
Not surprisingly, the volume of hemp that has been planted and harvested has dropped each year, right along with the number of farmers.
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In 2023, 20 of the state's 30 licensed hemp farmers grew 14,609 square feet worth of hemp indoors and planted 278 acres of it outside. The other 10 licensees didn't grow at all. That’s certainly not an industry nor an economic driver.
Farmers, industry experts and hemp advocates have identified multiple governmental reasons for the industry’s failure to launch — slow-walked and arbitrary regulations at the state and federal levels, a disinterested state Department of Agriculture and Attorney General Mike Hilgers, a hemp skeptic who is trying to shut down sales of federally allowed Delta 8 products in the state.
The biggest hangup, however, is a practical problem that Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard identified during the bill’s consideration five years ago: Processors simply have not shown up in the state. The Nebraska Department of Agriculture has licensed fewer than 40 hemp processors since 2019. There are just seven licensed processors today, and it’s unclear if any processed hemp is grown for fiber or grain.
How to get processors to invest the $10 million or more in each potential Nebraska plant is difficult to determine. But if a hemp industry is to actually develop, the state needs to take action to make growing and processing easier and more understandable.
That could start in the Legislature next year, where a bill that would have eased regulations on hemp farmers by expanding harvest deadlines and upping the THC concentration that could trigger penalties failed to become law last year.
Hilgers and his legislative allies could also drop their efforts to ban THC in the state, which would be a blow to the industry, and the Department of Agriculture could abandon its overly cautious, essentially anti-hemp approach and encourage its development.
It’s impossible to know whether any of that or the need for updated federal regulations will happen.
But unless the state takes some of those actions, there will be no significant hemp industry and none of its economic benefits in Nebraska.