This episode’s guests include:

Our new Regulation Wrangler (cool title right?) Jenn Price from Golden State Govt. Relations where she serves as a consultant in the cannabis industry. Jenn opens the show talking about the challenges of USDA and FDA regulations that could slow down the industry.

Josh Hendrix, Director of U.S. Hemp Production for CV Sciences, Inc and Plus CBD Oil, talks about hemp farming and the challenges of growing a crop that’s been illegal for 75 years.

And finally, the show closes with an introduction to the Indigenous Perspectives of Hemp panel at this past NoCo Hemp Expo in Denver Colorado. Olowan Martinez of the Oglala Sioux Tribe spoke about a major issue facing tribes growing hemp on reservation lands that I hadn’t even considered.

We want to hear from you too. Send us your questions and you might hear them answered on future shows! Send us your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, email matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.

More about Hemp Farming

Read more about hemp farming in the U.S.:

• Full Traceability — From Seed to Shelf
• George Washington’s Hemp Farm
• How Hemp Saved A Piece Of Vermont Farming History
• The Many Uses Of Hemp On Smaller Farms
• What The 2018 Farm Bill Means For US Hemp & Agriculture

Episode Transcript

Matt: Welcome back to the Ministry of Hemp Podcast.

Matt: Last time on the show we were talking about eating hemp and how to introduce it into your diet, but that hemp has got to come from somewhere. So today on the show we are going to look at hemp farming and the challenges that American hemp farmers face.

Matt: Now, I’m sure you’ve heard that recently the 2018 Farm Bill passed, and that Farm Bill allowed farmers to start growing industrial hemp. The Farm Bill defines hemp as cannabis that contains less than .3 per cent THC. I’d love to tell you that was it and farmers everywhere are rejoicing, but there’s not quite hemp gold in those fields yet, son.

Matt: Now that the government is involved, that means Uncle Sam has some rules and regulations that he’s going to need farmers in all 50 states to follow if they want to get in on growing hemp. Towards the end of last month, the FDA and the USDA made some announcements that they were going to open the floor to listen to representatives and their plans for how their states would like to grow hemp, sort of like the meeting of the committee to form a committee if you will.

Matt: Of course there’s going to be lots of rules and regulations coming down, now I am not a lawyer, I only pretend to be one on my comic book show every once in a while. Not here, this is serious stuff. So I found the next best thing.

Jen Price D.C.: Hi, I’m doctor Jen Price, D.C., I am the director of state compliance at Golden State Government Relations and I work with people on regulatory compliance for cannabis, and as hemp has become the big hot topic, we are transitioning towards helping folks with hemp as well.

Matt: Jen is great, she is a super passionate cannabis activist, she is a doctor of chiropractic, and she knows her way around these legal rules and regulations pretty good, so I have made her the official Ministry of Hemp legal consultant. Bad news Jen, I’m afraid it doesn’t pay well.

Jen Price D.C.: I just want to say, before I go into any of this, I am not a lawyer. I work in regulation and compliance so we are following all of this, I do work with all of this, but nothing I’m saying here is legal advice.

Matt: Okay, so unlike lawyers you’re not full of B.S. is what you’re saying?

Jen Price D.C.: Right, I’m just going to give it to you straight.

Matt: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay.

Jen Price D.C.: There’s a couple things that have been going on since the 2018 farm bill passed so everybody’s been super excited that hemp has basically been legalized, but what a lot of people don’t realize is there’s still some more steps to go before this is actually going to be a real thing that’s operationally happening.

Matt: This is legalization on a federal level only, right?

Jen Price D.C.: Correct, and it is going to apply to all the states but it’s just a little more complex. You can pass a law but just because you passed a law doesn’t mean that you have the regulatory framework to put that law into place, so where we are right now is at that time where we need to put the regulatory framework into place. And what’s just happened this week is we’ve had some announcements from both the USDA and the FDA about their plans and timeframes that they’re looking at to actually implement these things that had just recently become legal because of the 2018 farm bill.

Matt: Legal in quotations, right? Because-

Jen Price D.C.: Legal in quotations.

Matt: – On a state level, like a red state like Nebraska can decide no we’re not legalizing it here yet.

Jen Price D.C.: There are still states’ rights and really what’s going on right now is, until the United States Department of Agriculture comes up with their regulatory framework, nobody can start to really utilize the benefits of the 2018 farm bill.

Matt: Okay.

Jen Price D.C.: They’re going to have to put into place what the process is going to have to be for regulation, and then there’s going to be two scenarios: either a state can adopt the USDA’s regulatory framework, or if a state wants to have their own regulatory framework, they need to apply to the USDA to have it approved before they can implement it. But they’ll accept applications from states or plans from states at this point, but they aren’t going to start reviewing them until after they’ve decided what they want to do at the federal level.

Matt: Okay.

Jen Price D.C.: So, the federal regulatory framework comes into place, then they’ll start looking at the individual states and what individual states want to do. And so there’s kind of two parts that I want to discuss because we’ve got what’s going on with growing hemp and the USDA, and then we’ve got what’s going on with hemp derived CBD products and the FDA.

Matt: Okay, so let’s get into the first one, the growing hemp and the USDA.

Jen Price D.C.: Yes, the 2014 Farm Bill allowed for states to choose to start pilot programs for growing hemp for the purposes of research, the three that have the strongest programs are Kentucky, Colorado and Oregon.

Matt: Let me ask you real quick, when you say growing for research what does that mean?

Jen Price D.C.: Well, it means that that’s all that the feds allowed for, so part of these pilot programs is they need to be collecting some kind of data for quote “research purposes” and some of the states have taken that to mean market research. And so that’s why we’re seeing hemp derived CBD products that are gray area legal coming out of Colorado, out of Oregon, out of Kentucky, stuff is coming in from outside of the US as well, and it’s really been this area that has technically always been illegal. If you look at the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act which is what the FDA goes by, none of this has ever actually been legal as far as they’re concerned for inter-state commerce, but they just really don’t have a lot of resources to enforce.

Jen Price D.C.: But with the Farm Bill coming out in 2018, which has taken hemp and all of its derivatives off of the CSA’s list of drugs, so it basically took it off the scheduling, so there’s now a different definition for hemp [crosstalk 00:06:11] than for marijuana-

Matt: Schedule 1 was basically illegal drugs, they said like marijuana, and heroin, and crack cocaine, obviously, are all schedule 1.

Jen Price D.C.: Right, so hemp used to just get lumped in ’cause it’s cannabis. It’s cannabis and what they’ve done is they’ve now made a distinction so hemp, which means that it has less than .3 per cent THC for the whole plant, is now considered different than all other cannabis which they call marijuana.

Matt: And since this is USDA related, we’re talking about hemp that will be grown for food, for tinctures, for stuff like that-

Jen Price D.C.: Exactly-

Matt: – Not necessarily hemp that’s used for paper or fabric.

Jen Price D.C.: Well, it is going to include the stuff used for paper and fabrics, it’s going to be all industrial hemp.

Matt: Oh is it? Okay, gotcha. So the floodgates aren’t open yet, but the floodgates are opening, if you will.

Jen Price D.C.: They are opening, and so it’s basically …

Matt: Jen is wonderful, and my conversation with her went on much longer than this. And yeah, there’s going to be a big scary regulation show coming, and I’m still trying to figure out a way to make it interesting, so pray for me.

Matt: So, now that we’ve talked about regulation and how scary that’s going to be, let’s get down in the dirt and let’s talk about farming. That’s where this guy comes in.

Josh Hendricks: So, I’m Josh Hendricks I’m the director of domestic hemp production for CV Sciences, makers of Plus CBD Oil. I also sit on the board of directors and serve as president of the US Hemp Roundtable, as well as the board of directors for Friends of Hemp.

Matt: Okay, so you might know what you’re talking about is what you’re saying.

Josh Hendricks: Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I’ll give it a good guess.

Matt: Okay. So Josh we’re talking about where hemp comes from, and when I say where it comes from I mean literally how we grow hemp. Just recently the FDA has said we can start to grow hemp and they’re putting together a plan so that farmers can do so, there are some states where they’re already growing it. Tell me about hemp, is it hard to grow? Is it easy to grow? Is it different than say soybeans or corn? I’m a Nebraska guy so that’s what I know.

Josh Hendricks: Well, I also forgot to mention that I did grow hemp for 3 years on my farm, I took 2018 off ’cause I think I was on the road somewhere North of 200 days last year. So it would have been a little hard to farm, and quite frankly I’m not a farmer. I moved home to get involved in the hemp industry, I quit my job the day after the Farm Bill passed in 2014 and decided to move home and utilize my family’s farm, which is small, but also really just to get involved in the hemp industry. I started the Kentucky Hemp Industries Association, I started my podcast The Hemp Happy Hour, started working with CV Sciences, et cetera.

Josh Hendricks: I can tell you from personal experience that it’s not easy to grow hemp.

Matt: Really?

Josh Hendricks: Of course. It’s no different than what soybeans was like in the ’60s and that’s a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States now as an agricultural [commodity 00:09:07], not even just including the food products and things that-

Matt: Sure, sure.

Josh Hendricks: – are made from soy. So, we had a 75 year gap in growing that here, so the variety, the cultivars that have been developed in terms of hemp are either brand new to the US and being bred here in the US, or from cannabis, or they’re certified hemp seeds from around the world that haven’t been grown here and that are being trialed in different states, and regions, and geographical type areas within states even. So trying to figure out what seeds work best, what varieties work best for both CBD seed grain and/or fiber production.

Matt: So basically the biggest challenge right now is what grows the best where.

Josh Hendricks: I would say there’s some other challenges for sure, obviously you don’t have any pesticides or fungicides, and that doesn’t mean the bad ones, I’m very anti chemicals and things like that. But there are organic ways to do that kind of stuff, and we’re still playing with a lot of those going on.

Josh Hendricks: I mean it’s kind of a blessing in disguise that we’ve been given this 75 year break, I know it stinks to think we missed out on this opportunity for so long, but now we have an opportunity really to not [inaudible 00:10:15] with GMOs with particular plants, we can do it the right way, we can learn how to farm this organically, which we’re forced to do right now because there are no approved pesticides, [inaudible 00:10:25], or sprays or anything of that nature for hemp, and hopefully that’ll stay that way for a while so we can figure out how to grow this organically.

Josh Hendricks: At CV Sciences we’re working with the Rodale Institute along with the likes of Patagonia and Dr. Bronner to try to help them further, and really advance as fast as we can the organic research on this new crop because this can also hopefully transition farmers back to the organic way of farming.

Matt: Sure. Okay, now you’re in Kentucky, is that right?

Josh Hendricks: I have an apartment in Kentucky and a farm there I don’t see it very often.

Matt: Oh okay. When you say I moved home you

Matt: … home to Kentucky, but you travel all the damn time.

Josh Hendricks: I established residency there, yes.

Matt: Got you. Okay. So growing hemp, in and of itself, is it easier or harder in the sense that like compared to another crop as far as pests and challenges with the weather and soil and stuff like that? Or is it the kind of thing where it’ll really grow anywhere if you do it right?

Josh Hendricks: Again, it’s very variety dependent. So, if you lived in Florida, you’re not going to have the same type of hemp growing very well in Florida that you would in say, Minnesota, if you’re using soil. Now if you’re greenhouse, or indoor controlling it, which I just think is not the way things are going to be considering hemp is going to be a commodity no matter how good it is, or how high it is in CBD, it’s still going to be a commodity. And the race is to efficiency. But I think different varieties for different climates, different soil types, et cetera. It’s no different than any other. You don’t grow the same type of soy in Indiana as you do in Kentucky.

Matt: Sure.

Josh Hendricks: Actually you do, they’re actually close.

Matt: Okay.

Josh Hendricks: But in certain parts of Kentucky, you grow different kinds of corn than you would literally in the same state. We have three very different farming regions between western, central, and eastern Kentucky. And so, there’s going to be different varieties for different areas because you’re trying to efficiently be able to produce that crop and get the most yield, obviously. I mean that seems like common sense.

Matt: Right. I mean that’s anything you’re growing, right?

Josh Hendricks: Right. Right. And given this new crop, we’re really still experimenting. You can look at the states every year and see how many acres are approved. And then you can see how many acres are planted. And then you can see how many acres are harvested. And a lot of that loss along the way is weed suppression, right?

Matt: Sure.

Josh Hendricks: The canopy doesn’t come up, they’re still trying to figure out what time of year to plan some of these crops. Maybe it’s later than they think. Maybe it’s easier than they think. Soil preparation is key, obviously, to try and get as many weeds out of there as possible, but also have good nutrients in the ground. So yeah, it’s very dependent on all those factors. And I think we’re still very much in the early stages. But as you’re seeing, there isn’t a lot of success being had too, and it doesn’t necessarily mean the people failing are doing a bad job. Some of it’s weather related.

Matt: Right.

Josh Hendricks: Some of it’s information they’ve gotten from other folks, honestly. So, yeah I think it’s new and it’s exciting, but it’s very new.

Matt: So the hardest part is really due to the fact that we had a 75 year break while this was illegal. And people just kind of forgot how to grow it.

Josh Hendricks: Of course. I mean, we started sourcing in the Netherlands in 2012 before you could even get hemp here in the US. And trust me, they weren’t having any problem growing it. They’ve been growing it. Those seeds are bred for that climate, that weather.

Matt: Sure.

Josh Hendricks: That soil. All we did was ask them to harvest in a different way. So, that’s the difference in what’s going on right now. Obviously CBD’s driving the train, but I think what you’re going to see is hemp seed oil becomes big in cosmetics and food and body care. And as the fiber, hopefully, takes over the composite materials industry and, you see it in dashboards and overhead compartments in airplanes. That’s when the rubber starts to meet the road and hemp really does become a commodity. Even the floral material that’s being used for CBD production, or hemp extracts, you’re going to start the see the price of that go way down. So it will be a race to simple efficiency and who can farm it the best and create the best quality, but also at the lowest cost.

Matt: Sure. Now, the hemp that you are growing, do you grow different hemp for something like hemp seed oil, than you would grow for CBD oil? Or you would grow for say, fabric or composite plastics? Is it all different hemp?

Josh Hendricks: Industry specific hemp, such as fiber hemp, is what we actually use for our CBD material. It’s not high in CBD, but there’s enough CBD in there and there’s enough nutrients and [inaudible 00:14:49] for us to produce, what is currently the top retail brand CBD in the world. I think there’s a misconception of, oh the more CBD, the more money because everybody is chasing after Ice woods which is a whole nother ball game that we’re not in. We don’t do Ice woods because we actually believe that that’s going to go the way of the pharmaceutical industry. That’s what GW Pharmaceutical uses, although their CBD is from marijuana. CBD ice wood from hemp is still a little bit more, gray I would say.

Matt: Okay.

Josh Hendricks: So hemp extract is really what we focus on. But that being said, people are producing hemp extracts with all female type grows growing, which you would refer to as maybe tomato, or tobacco style, or even all indoors in their climate, really control environments. Which cost a lot of money, right?

Matt: Right.

Josh Hendricks: And so, the price of a pound of hemp is X, tomorrow or next year it’s going to be Y. And if their cost of doing business is Z, and Z is higher than Y, than that’s not really going to last forever. And so as more and more hemp gets produced, the price of hemp, the price of CBD for that matter, comes down. So it really is a race to efficiency and that’s where I believe direct seed agricultural farming using machines and mechanization, automatization, those kind of things are really going to further this industry over the next three to five years.

Matt: Now what about like nutrients in the soil? One of the things that farmers deal with in western Nebraska is they’ve been growing soy beans and corn for so long that they’ve literally stripped all the nutrients out of the soil. Does hemp behave differently? Is it the kind of crop that could possibly be used to reinvigorate nitrogen levels and stuff like that? Or is it a lot more … is it very nutrient heavy?

Josh Hendricks: Yeah. So it’s a phenomenal rotation crop given that it actually leaves the soil better than it found it. It’s a reginative crop. So, it’s going to sequester CO2 in the soil, and if you add it to that rotation now, it actually makes corn and soy a little bit more sustainable because you’re not having to use all that. You know when I come in with corn or soy behind hemp, I’m going to use less chemicals, less nutrients, things like that, and it’s going to cost me less money which means I’m going to make more money hopefully off the corn.

Matt: Sure.

Josh Hendricks: But also, going to hopefully start steering that into more sustainable direction as well.

Matt: Now, we don’t have like you said, a commodity for stuff like this yet, but people are growing it and selling it. What is it comparable to something like cotton, or something like soy beans, or something like corn?

Josh Hendricks: Depends on the market, or what you’re growing it for. Obviously if you’re growing it for fiber, you’re looking at more along the lines of a kenaf pricing. A little bit better than hay obviously because it is a little bit more labor … or not labor intensive, but a little bit more work and it costs a little more to do it.

Josh Hendricks: When you talk about grain or the seed, you’re definitely going to get more than soy or corn. It’s not going to be a ton more, but it’s really not any more cost prohibitive to do it.

Josh Hendricks: And then when you talk about CBD, that number’s astronomical right now.

Matt: Right.

Josh Hendricks: Everybody’s paying added percent per pound. So let’s say you have a 5% CBD, if you get $3 a pound, you’re getting $15 a pound, and you’re getting in the neighborhood of five figures an acre. And hopefully you have less than five figures to make [inaudible 00:17:59].

Matt: Sure.

Josh Hendricks: So, and that’s unheard of in agriculture. And that’s not going to last forever. Just like it’s not going to last that way forever with marijuana.

Matt: Right.

Josh Hendricks: Break people’s … most people’s bubble there. But they were giving away weed in Oregon.

Matt: So we’re going through like a boom right now. And when this all comes together, and finally they … the FDA does approve everything and we have farms everywhere, do you see a bust coming?

Josh Hendricks: I do. I mean I think … like I said, this is a race to efficiency. I’ve been going around the country, I’ve been preaching that for six months to a year. And I’ve told everybody that there’s a lot of people out there recreating the wheel, because they believe in their genetic. And that’s fine, I totally appreciate that, I support it. I mean we need people working on new genetics everyday.

Matt: Right.

Josh Hendricks: But there’s a risk involved in that. And that’s, how much money are you willing to spend to develop a genetic and to develop a growing philosophy, if you will, or production philosophy, cultivation philosophy that is very costly? Of course there’s going to be niche markets and people are going to pay high dollar for certain things. But I do think that what you’ll see, eventually, is a commodity style pricing on hemp for both hemp flower material, hemp seed crushed up, hemp seed oil, and then obviously, hemp fiber and hemp herd. You have five different markets there that the prices are going to fluctuate based on supply. And eventually, the supply meets the demand.

Matt: Of course.

Josh Hendricks: Price starts coming down. So, that’s the game with any agricultural crop or soon to be commodity. I think we’re just on the cusp of it.

Matt: Sure. So let me ask you, you said you have a small farm. How big is your farm?

Josh Hendricks: My grandfather’s farm is about 100 acres. And then we have a couple other small farms and one big farm that’s really more just woods.

Matt: Okay. So how much of that are you using to grow hemp? Of that 100 acres?

Josh Hendricks: So we grew 11 acres each year, the three years that we did grow. Then my neighbors are growing somewhere in the neighborhood of a little over 100 acres this coming year.

Matt: Okay. So, what do you think you can get out of 100 acres? Like what does that produce? Let’s say it’s all successful, no problems. Best case scenario. What are you producing in 100 acres?

Josh Hendricks: Well if we’re growing with direct seed, and we’re harvesting the tops and we’re harvesting the stock the way that they do it in Europe, you’re looking to get 2,500 to 3,000 pounds of not … it’s not going to be high CBD, you’re looking at 1% to 2% CBD. But once we CO2 extract that, we can get what we need at CV Sciences. And then bailing up the fiber, you’re going to get a little less than average. I don’t even know the number off the top of my head, because that’s not my business. But, they’re going to get another … so basically they’re going to get a check from us based on the dry weight produced off the field and the floral materials, their stems and seeds in there because it’s both male and female.

Matt: Right.

Josh Hendricks: And then they’re going to get a check from another company like say, a Sunstrand who’s in Mobile, Kentucky who’s a fiber processor for weight of each bail of the stock that they have.

Matt: So the real benefit is you’re not just growing a strawberry. You’re not just growing an ear of corn. You’re growing a plant that is used a lot of different ways. And because it’s used a lot of different ways, you can sell it to a lot of different people.

Josh Hendricks: Well, and the guys doing this are big time farmers that they understand that it’s a numbers game, right? They need to rotate their crops. It’s going to benefit them on the corn and their soy. Especially these organic farmers that we’re looking at. I mean, they’re looking at it as [crosstalk 00:21:25].

Matt: Right. [crosstalk 00:21:29]

Josh Hendricks: [crosstalk 00:21:31] commercial farmers are doing and doing organic. Kind of insane.

Matt: Again, Josh and I had a much longer conversation here and he’ll definitely be back on the show. He brings up some really good points about how young this industry is, the hemp industry. And sure, there’s a lot of challenges to be face right now. But there’s also a lot of chances to do it the right way. And that’s pretty unique for agriculture in this country.

Matt: For the final segment of this show, I wanted to play

Matt: A little bit of a talk that I listened to at the NoCo Hemp Expo in Denver just the other weekend. This was the introduction to the Indigenous Peoples Panel that I sat in and listened to and they bought up some challenges that I didn’t even think about. The panel was introduced by a woman named [Oloah 00:22:20] from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation who’s been growing Hemp for a while and doing pretty well with it. Unlike a lot of other farmers the Pine Ridge Reservation has to be very careful with what they do and how they treat their crops I let Oloah speak about some more.

Jen Price D.C.: Indigenous language [00:22:38]. Good morning or good day volunteers, my name is Oloah and I have traveled here from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, just like many of you, to make connections, network, try to find, I guess, a hemp family is what we’re doing. When I was asked to give opening statements I kept thinking to myself what do I want the Hemp Industry to know about the mentality in the not so indigenous nations, the true landlords of this continent and I want to start out with … by saying, with any industry we know that there’s good and bad in everything.

Jen Price D.C.: So, being a landowner also, land I inherited from my grandparents I see this is a very dangerous time for Indian country again, because we see predators coming in to our homelands trying to obtain land through promises of money, through promises of status, so I want to say we need to pay attention to this fat-taker mentality, so I wanted to talk about a [locota 00:24:09] word that we have and that locota word is [wachetu 00:24:12]. And through our history that word has come to define a white man, but that isn’t the literal term for it, although it could probably explain color. But I guess I wanted to say this word is, in today’s world is more a mentality set or a mindset. Wachetu is taker of the best part of the meat, takes the best part for him or herself, takes the best part of it for self. So I guess I wanted to explain that word that in today’s world Wachetu isn’t just white. There’s red, there’s brown, there’s black and yellow fat-takers today, but see we learned this well.

Jen Price D.C.: So, I guess I wanted to speak about that word because my fear is that this industry becomes fat-takers industry and we don’t want that to happen. I heard [Winona 00:25:26], a hero of mine also, speak earlier and she talked about how this industry is led by white men and I think a big part of my nervousness today was, in my mind, I thought that’s who would be in the audience, is all these … this different side of the hemp industry and looking out at everybody I don’t see that. So, I’m taking it that they’ll review our videos, our statements later. I’m hoping because we don’t want, as indigenous people, we don’t want to be these historical relics to be mocked anymore. As I mentioned before being the true landlords, caretakers of this continent, and we forgot our part. I see our Nations as coming out of historical, generational, chemically induced, oppressive state of mind, but that’s over now. We’re taking our future into our own hands and taking it back from fat-taker.

Jen Price D.C.: So, I guess I wanted to come and express that in this relationship building in this industry, I think of it as how … I think of allowing people into my home, not just anybody get to come in. As Indigenous Nations we’ve seen, you give an inch, they take a mile. So if we only let em into our doorway will they flood our homes? Will they come in and just takeover and assume and assert themselves? We’ve had that happen to us before and I think, now that we’re out of this chemically induced oppressive state of mind, we’re not going to let that happen anymore. So, with this industry being a light for many Nations to come out of that ration line, I’m hoping that these relationships will go for generations. I want to leave everyone in this industry with a question or something to think about.

Jen Price D.C.: Are you here as a fat-taker? Are you willing to share knowledge? Because if you come in a good way we always accept and return in a good way as Nations, as Traditional People of these lands. And again, I do want to acknowledge the [Arapoho 00:28:21], like Winona mentioned earlier, cause traditionally this was their land before Denver ever existed, these town, these buildings, this was already a home to a Nation. So, I think that’s a part that this fat-taker mentality of the hemp industry refuses to see also is that coming out of denial that no, you don’t own land. You stole land. You’re illegally growing and living on stolen land. And so that brings guilt, you know, we’ve seen all this. So, again we’re here about being neighbors and to discuss healing aspects for self and earth, for a mother we all share. That’s Mother Earth and locota it’s [Euchimacar 00:29:17] for us, our grandmother. She was always here for us so it’s time to take responsibility back again, like Winona said, and give back.

Jen Price D.C.: And the locota we know in our history, we were to always feed the spirits and what land and things contaminate it, how are we going to do that? So again, we’re taking responsibility back into our own hands. And so those are just some insight I wanted to share, and again, leave you with something to think about is … Are you here in the hemp industry as a fat-taker?

Jen Price D.C.: We’ve had dealings with fat-taker and we don’t want to deal with fat-taker anymore. So we’re hoping to build relationships that eventually turn into something more solid. And again, also with the bad, just because we allow you into our homelands, don’t assume that you’re being invited into our spiritual spaces. That’s also boundaries as relationships and as relatives as we need to understand. So again, lets keep our common mother in mind in all our interactions with each other and it’s Mother Earth.

Jen Price D.C.: Thank you.

Matt: That whole Indigenous Peoples Panel that I sat through was really amazing and they talk a lot about how successful they’d been with growing hemp and how much respect they have for the plant. They spoke about farmers selling their genetics for seeds and whatnot and how nobody owns these plants and how they bought some of these genetically modified seeds and they returned to feral plants on their own land that grew better there.

Matt: It shows a real respect for the hemp plant itself that, I hope, stays in this industry and it filled me with a lot of hope for the industry. You’ll hear a lot more about my time at NoCo in the next show. I’m gonna do a whole diary on it, but I hope you learned something about growing hemp this week and I’d love to hear your reactions and your questions.

Matt: You can always hit me up via email at matt@ministryofhemp.com. Call us anytime, day or night, at 4028196417 with your questions or comments and I’d love to play them on the show. Shoot us a tweet @ministryofhemp on twitter, hit us up on Facebook at facebook\ministyrofhemp and please, ask us question, that’s what we’re here for. We’re trying to demystify this and learn together. As always, there will be a full written transcript in the show notes for this episode, and please if you get a chance and you enjoy this, leave us a rating on iTunes. It really does help other people to find the show. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take care of others and make good decisions will ya.

Matt: This is Matt and the Ministry of Hemp, signing off.

As always, you can find download the complete show transcript here:

• Ministry of Hemp Podcast Episode 3 Transcript PDF
  

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