Doug Fine is an author who became so invested in his subject—hemp and, more broadly speaking, the cannabis plant—that he began growing hemp and developing a long-term plan as an entrepreneur. With the 2014 Farm Bill ushering in a new era in American agriculture, the dawning of the new hemp industry brought Fine to a greater understanding of the plant and its many possibilities. From New Mexico to Vermont, he’s picked up many adventures with the crop in the first five years of its 21^st-century cultivation in the U.S. 

Amanda Gorski

His latest book, American Hemp Farmer, outlines a more practical guide for aspiring hemp growers who may be interested in a close read of the industry and its attendant charms. Here, Fine talks about what he’s learned from the writing process and how he’s “walked the walk” as a hemp farmer himself.

Eric Sandy: In the interim between Hemp Bound and American Hemp Farmer, what did that earlier book teach you about the plant?

Doug Fine: It actually starts a little earlier than that. In 2011, I embedded for a year in the Emerald Triangle ganja-growing culture in California to write about regenerative nonprofit medicinal cannabis providers to see what the landscape could look like in a best-case scenario when legalization happened. At this point, there was no guarantee that any kind of cannabis would be legalized. Now, it’s not only happening in many states, but it looks like a near-certainty soon on the federal level.

While I was working with those farmers, they were talking about how their entire market is flower. They felt like, at best, they could compost the fiber. But they weren’t growing for seed at all. They were growing female plants. They planted the seed in my head, so to speak, that there was so much more to this plant. I went on a several-year research project that became Hemp Bound, which came out 4/20, 2014, not knowing when I was researching this book that hemp would be legalized the same month this book came out. Hemp would be federally legalized in the initial 2014 Farm Bill.

It was time to write a book about how we take this burgeoning industry and how farmers benefit. Let’s face it, farmers haven’t been the chief beneficiary of agriculture over the last century.

That’s really why I wrote American Hemp Farmer: It’s a practical, entire-season, start-to-finish, from soil prep and seed acquisition through harvesting, packaging and marketing—a way to keep regenerative, independent hemp farming as hemp’s leading brand, so that farmers are the primary beneficiary of this billion-dollar industry.

ES: For the active or prospective hemp farmer, what are some of the immediate challenges in 2020 season?

DF: Two immediate issues to keep in mind: The first is, as Wendell Berry advised me, please, tell your fellow hemp farmers to avoid that wholesale trap. I’m paraphrasing here. It’s important to control your industry. The way that I phrase it in the book is to think instead of putting all your eggs in the basket as a wholesale commodities serf, think about creating a value-added product. That is, I think, still the advice I would give as the book hits shelves. However, it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s just a way to avoid what has actually happened, which is that wholesale CBD flower prices have gone from $3,000 a pound to $4 a pound in the last few years. If you want to make it, you’ve got to take that extra energy—and it requires so much more work.

Now, you’ve got to be an entrepreneur. You’re not just a farmer, you’re a farmer-entrepreneur. It’s way more work. The liability and risk is on you. But if you’ve got a passion, you’ve got a real chance for making a good living while sequestering carbon and doing good for the environment.

The second one is a policy issue: We got a reprieve this year, in the 2020 season, where we can grow one more season under the 2014 Farm Bill (Ed. note: As many states are doing). It is imperative that prior to next year’s planting we change the federal definition of hemp from 0.3% to, at least, up to 1% THC content. That must happen. Speaking personally, if I’m going to be able to plant in future years, that has to happen. The plant wants THC, and there’s no reason to be scared of THC. 

 

ES: In terms of your own farm, what is your vision or your own end products that you’re working toward with your crop?

DF: The product that I market is the product that I most want to use and my family most wants to use. It’s called Hemp In Hemp, and it’s what it sounds like. To date, it’s been what I’ve been growing in Vermont, USDA-organic-certified hemp flower that is dioecious. It’s male and female. The seeded flower is infused in the hemp seed oil, so you’re getting flower and seed. It’s been marketed as a massage and bath oil, and my hope is in coming season to expand it to be an edible product. The hemp seed oil side is a superfood, and you’re getting the whole-plant cannabinoids. We do a decarboxylation extraction, so it’s all the cannabinoids in very low numbers but in ratios that I like, with terpenes. It’s very small-batch, very top-shelf. I’m trying to walk the walk and be a role model. I am trying to follow my own advice and have a multi-year entrepreneurial plan with slow growth. I’m trying to demonstrate that we have to, as entrepreneurs, we’ve got to be part of the solution, climate-wise.

ES: What’s the learning curve like in this industry?

DF: I tend to be supportive of newcomers to hemp farming and hemp farmer entrepreneurialism. The reason is: We need for farmers. There’s a school of thought, especially among some more experienced farmers, who say, “Oh my gosh, these greenhorns are leaping in and not knowing what they’re doing!” And, yes, one has to be mature and start small and build slowly. But I say, get the seed in the ground! Learn as you go! It really is the best way to go. If you’re a super young farmer who has the time and energy to apprentice with more experienced farmers, sure, that’s great. But if you’re a farmer who wants to move on and make a living from hemp, I would say, get the seed in the ground. Ask the experts. But you’re never going to learn as much as you will from being in that field every day. I encourage folks to do it: Start small and have a multi-year growth plan.

ES: What did you enjoy most about the writing process in this book? Something that you could take back to the field with you?

DF: For me, humor is always the root to maintaining sanity. I love any time when I can recount really funny things that happened. What comes to mind is the “Planting Day” chapter. The chapter is about malfunctioning equipment—seed drills, specifically—while we were trying to plant our crop. The humor embedded in this, the angry customer service calls I and my colleagues to the people who leased us the equipment, everything that could go wrong—from the seed drill not dropping enough seeds to dropping all your seeds in one spot—it’s funny in retrospect.

The second thing is when I’m out in the field and saying, “Oh, this is a moment I’d love to convey in the book.” That tended to happen when I was out with my family in the home field and it’s quiet, we’re hearing a woodpecker or seeing a fox. We’re talking to the rabbits about treating our crop as a “sometimes-food.” It’s the moments where I say, “This is a moment that means a lot to me.” I’ll whip out my phone and make a quick note for the book. Those were the two most fun experiences for me.

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) program regulating the legal federal production of cannabis for research purposes has been non-compliant with international drug laws for decades, according to an advisory from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

A recently released 2018 memo from the OLC advises the DEA to “change its current practices and the policy it announced in 2016 to comply with the Single Convention.”

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, an international treaty on scheduled narcotics, requires signatory countries to impose stringent controls on the cultivation, manufacture, and distribution of narcotic drugs, including cannabis. One such control is that governments interested in cannabis research “establish ‘a single government agency’ to oversee marijuana growers and generally to monopolize the wholesale trade in the marijuana crop.” By licensing cultivation to the National Institution on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, and by never taking sole ownership of the research cannabis produced at the National Center, the DEA is in violation of international law.

The main issue is that the Single Convention has never been strictly observed by the U.S. government. There’s no basis for an argument that legalization and regulation of cannabis would flout the treaty, because federal policy has not been in compliance in the first place, says Omar Figueroa, a cannabis attorney based in California.

“The monopoly granted to the University of Mississippi is not compliant and not required by international law.”

The OLC, which provides legal advice to the President and all executive branch agencies, wrote the memo on June 6, 2018, but it only was released to the public on April 29, 2020, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought forth by the Scottsdale Research Institute in March demanding documents that would help explain the slow rollout of the federal government's cannabis research program’s expansion.

While the memo does not explain why there have been no new licensed research groups since the DEA reopened its application process in 2016, it provides context to the draft rules that the DEA proposed in March.

In the March 23 notice of proposed rulemaking, the DEA noted that “DOJ advised DEA that it must adjust its policies and practices to ensure compliance with the CSA [Controlled Substances Act], including the CSA's requirement that registrations be consistent with the Single Convention.” Among the proposed rule changes, DEA suggested that “[all] registered manufacturers who cultivate cannabis shall deliver their total crops of cannabis to DEA … not later than four months after the end of the harvest.”

In this scenario, “[once] DEA has purchased and taken title to the crop, the material would be maintained, under seal, in DEA's possession in the manufacturer's schedule I vault until such time that a distribution is necessary. … DEA may distribute (or export) the marihuana directly or may choose to authorize the grower to distribute marihuana on the government's behalf.”

A potential solution for the DEA to become compliant with the Single Convention outlined in the OLC memo is the “DEA could station one or more employees at the National Center [and other federally licensed research labs] after cultivation as a way of ensuring physical possession of the marijuana and exclusive control over its distribution.” In its proposed rulemaking changes, DEA states that cannabis “owned by the government is maintained at the DEA-registered manufacturer's site where DEA would maintain its ability to access the storage location at which such crops are located as it deemed necessary.” (Note: emphasis added.)

In other words, the proposed rule change would grant DEA total access to federal research cannabis reserves as the agency would be the sole owner of said cannabis.

“I don’t like the idea that the DEA now has to take physical possession and acquire title to all cannabis that is lawfully grown [with a federal research license] in the United States,” Figueroa says. “That’s how they see their role.”

But not everyone is opposed to the idea of the DEA taking a larger, more physical presence in the cannabis research field. Albert Gutierrez, CEO of MedPharm, one of the federal research license applicants, said in a statement to CBT, “As a licensed bulk manufacturer we would take no issue with the DEA coming to our facility to take possession of the harvest as they've outlined in the proposed rules.”

Gutierrez adds, “We are encouraged by the progress from the DEA and feel this is a great opportunity to align the cannabis research program with international law. As one of the first applicants to apply for the Bulk Manufacturer license, we are eager to begin providing cannabis to researchers around the country."