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Iowa Wraps First Hemp Season With Lessons Learned and 13% ‘Hot’ Crop Rate

With USDA approval, Iowa farmers applied for state licenses earlier this year and embarked on the new hemp journey that’s swept across the U.S.

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Courtesy of Robin Pruisner/Iowa Dept. of Agriculture

Iowa never established a pilot program under the 2014 Farm Bill, but in 2019 the state legislature passed a law that allowed licensed hemp production in 2020. With USDA approval, Iowa farmers applied for state licenses earlier this year and embarked on the new hemp journey that’s swept across the U.S.

“The introduction of hemp brings Iowa farmers another cash crop option for the 2020 growing season,” said Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said at the time. “As with any new market, there are lessons to learn and challenges to overcome, but we continue to hear from farmers who are excited for this new opportunity."

Midway through the year, as growers continued to adjust to the new crop, the state legislature passed a bill that would get the processing and manufacturing ends of the industry up and running in Iowa. The regulatory process is still in the rulemaking stages, but CBD consumption is expected to play a role in 2021.

We spoke with Robin Pruisner, Iowa state entomologist and self-described “Iowa Department of Agriculture hemp person,” to learn more about how this first year went—and where the state’s hemp industry is headed.

Eric Sandy: In a broad sense, how did Iowa’s first year of hemp go?

Robin Pruisner: We had a May 15 deadline for applications for outdoor grow. And we had 81 licenses that had applied by May 15. Since then, we had five more come in. So, we've got 86 licenses total for the calendar year. Total licensed acres was 733. And then I'm going to give you a big old asterisk when I give you acreage numbers. We are still trying to figure out how to do this, but we have people with 50 plants in the backyard and we consider that an acre. We don't really try to split an acre up. And then we have people that planted a grain crop and probably have 30,000 or 40,000 plants per acre. And so, it's really hard to tease apart acreage numbers. Take them with a grain of salt. We received planting notifications on 680 of those acres, and that includes 2,100 square feet indoor. 

ES: Was this predominantly for CBD extraction?

RP: We asked people to tell us on their application. So, this was their intent, and it may have been different than when they actually got around to planting, but we asked and we broke it down by: clones/cutting/seeds/starts versus cannabidiol versus grain versus seed versus fiber. AT the time applications started, smokable had not been outlawed yet. So, we have the numbers for what they applied for. Then we had some people write in “biomass.” We had 247 acres for which people had said CBD, but then we had another 264 acres in which people specified biomass. I think that that's probably all the same thing: extraction.

iowa hemp harvestiowa hemp harvest
Courtesy of Robin Pruisner/Iowa Dept. of Agriculture
 
ES: I read some local news reports that cited a 13-percent “hot” rate: crops that had to be destroyed. That seems maybe even a bit low compared to other estimates around the U.S. What does your office make of that?  

RP: This has been an interesting year, because you go into it and you think, “Oh, this is how I'm going to quantify data.” And then you get waist-deep and you go, “Oh, I should've done this differently.” We had initial tests, and an initial test could be anything from a handful of plants up to 40 acres. So, 13% of our initial tests failed. We did 119 initial tests, and ultimately 16 of those failed. Each one of those 16 that failed could have been a part of someone's crop—like a specific variety or one planting date—or it could have been their entire crop. For example, when we started out, I think we had three [initial tests] that totaled over 60 acres right away. And then we had smaller lots that failed. It's very difficult to give people an acreage number of how much was destroyed, because we didn't have people report their plantings to us, necessarily, in really strict acreage numbers. So, how many acres initially were destroyed? I have a hard time putting my finger on that personally. Based upon the experiences in other states, I expected a 20%, 25% failure rate at a minimum. So, I'm really pleased with that 13%, if someone can be pleased with destruction in any way.

ES: Whether it's the THC issue or just the fact that this is a new crop for so many, was your office fielding a lot of questions from growers about hemp cultivation in general? Any questions in particular?

RP: We did field some, and I'm the first to say that I'm not an expert by any means—not that many people are at all with such a new crop with so few years of research behind it at this point in time. I think most everyone had done a lot of sleuthing work on their own, probably with the power of Google, and I oftentimes recommended folks take a look at the University of Wisconsin, since that's the Midwestern state with relatively similar environment to what we have here in Iowa. I caution people against relying too heavily on states with vastly different climates, like Kentucky and Colorado and Oregon. I frequently had people say, “Well, you know, so-and-so in Oregon told me…” And then I would say, “Be careful with that, because that's just a different world out there compared to the growing conditions in Iowa.”

hot hemp iowahot hemp iowa
Courtesy of Robin Pruisner/Iowa Dept. of Agriculture
 
ES: In general terms, what are some of the standout features of the Iowa climate and land that might be beneficial to the hemp crop?

RP: Well, we are notoriously good at growing stuff. I always say we can grow the heck out of anything. The problem is: What are we going to do with it? We still have that processing bottleneck on getting [hemp] into products that consumers are willing to repeatedly buy. We're very, very accustomed to corn and soybeans and how to control weeds and what insects to look for and how to control them and what type of fertility rates are ideal. We lack all of that basic agronomic information for hemp. On the plus-side, we have some really great soil here: well-drained, high fertility, high organic matter, as long as you choose the right soils. I'm not saying we don't have boggy stuff here, too, but we do have a tremendous amount of great environment out there for growing.

ES: Regarding the bottleneck, what is the licensed processor landscape looking like in Iowa right now?

RP: In June, the governor signed a bill which amended the Hemp Act here in Iowa that does now make processing legal for consumption. We have an agency called DIA or Department of Inspections and Appeals, and those are the folks that do the food processors and other things that we consume in some way. They are in the process right now of moving a proposed rule through the rulemaking track that would make processing [hemp] for consumption products legal here in the state of Iowa. [In late November,] public comment closed on the proposed rule. So, now there's a Rules Committee hearing, and there’s a schedule to how fast a rule can go through the system. The earliest it could become implemented in the state of Iowa would be around the beginning of ‘21, probably February or March. So, right now, there are no legal processors for consumption in the state of Iowa. That passed, though, and is moving forward to that to happen.

ES: Looking ahead to 2021, what's the timeline for applications at this point for growers?

RP: Hopefully here in December, we will move from paper applications to an online system. And then hopefully we can immediately open that up to begin the licensing process.

ES: Are you getting a lot of feedback from farmers saying that they're looking forward to continuing with this crop? Or were there some anxieties about how this year went and about that ongoing bottleneck?

RP: I frequently hear some variation of the comment of, “Well, we'll see how much money I either make or lose on my ‘20 crop before I make a decision about my ‘21 crop.” I think those decisions are still in process.

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