HEMP RESEARCH: HELPING FARMERS NAVIGATE A NEW FIELD.

• Position: RESEARCH: NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. AGRICULTURAL AND TECHNICAL STATE UNIVERSITY

For some farmers, hemp sounds like the cash crop of their dreams. Since Congress made hemp farming legal in 2018, it has been the hot new topic in agriculture, bringing hope to North Carolina farmers still recovering financially from the decline of the tobacco industry. The fast-growing plant can yield seeds, flowers, fibers and oil, all of which can theoretically fetch high prices on the hemp market--enticing thousands to try growing it.

But there's one problem for current and future hemp farmers: it's a new field, with little long-term research to guide eager farmers on their journey.

Enter the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, which is performing research that ultimately will educate farmers on commercial hemp production. Researchers are studying a variety of aspects of hemp farming--from pests and pollination to production and profits--to help growers maximize the crop's potential and minimize the risks associated with growing it.

As they reach conclusions, the researchers will share their findings with farmers and agricultural Extension agents through symposia, seminars, pamphlets, websites and other means--all with the goal of painting a full picture of the realities of hemp production.

"The plant has a lot of potential, but people are jumping into something without considering what they need to do first," said Obed Quaicoe, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Agribusiness, Applied Economics and Agriscience Education. His team is using a $500,000 grant from the USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to examine the financial risks of growing hemp.

Hemp is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world, once grown in fields owned by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. But there's not a wide body of research on the best conditions for growing hemp, the pests it attracts or the economic ramifications for farmers growing it.

With good reason. For most of the last 100 years, it was illegal to grow hemp, which made it impossible to study the plant's biology or its potential as a crop. Hemp comes from cannabis, the same plant that produces marijuana. And though it's legal once again to grow hemp in North Carolina, marijuana is a different story. State officials regularly test hemp farmers' plants for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. If a cannabis plant contains more than .3 percent THC, then it's marijuana and must be destroyed.

That's just one of the risks of hemp farming. Others include pests...