Kattia Jimenez
From the outside, the big white barn looks like any other small family farm in southwestern Dane County, surrounded by gently rolling hills and freshly tilled fields. Kattia Jimenez greets me at the gravel driveway and we walk up the hill. What’s happening inside this barn is something that hasn’t been legal in Wisconsin for more than half a century. This is the home of the Mount Horeb Hemp Company, one of the few farms to grow hemp in 2018, the first year production became legal again in Wisconsin.
The first thing I notice is the electronic security keypad on the door, an anachronism for a century-old barn. The second thing I notice is the smell — a dry musty air that smells like marijuana. Inside the remodeled barn hemp plants are stacked floor to ceiling. The lights are dim and a disco ball hangs from the ceiling. An industrial strength dehumidifier hums in the corner. Four people are hunched over a table, trimming dried buds. Jimenez’s husband, John Eichorst, and a few friends are sorting through stacks of plants, separating the valuable flowers from the stems and leaves. Some plants are pinned to clotheslines crisscrossing the room. The harvested product is stacked in a small tower of plastic tubs leaning against the back wall.
They grew their crop from seed, which they sowed back on frosty April mornings in their small greenhouse. They tucked their seedlings into the field after the last frost in May, like tomatoes. In the first week of October, they harvested the first crop with a small handsaw. It’s now late October and in a few weeks the dried flowers will be sold to a processor who will turn them into CBD oil.
Jimenez and Eichorst are among about 100 farmers across the state who are legally growing hemp in Wisconsin. After being outlawed for decades, the state Legislature unanimously created a pilot program for hemp growers. Jimenez and Eichorst jumped in feet first.
Having lived in Seattle, where medical marijuana has been legal since 1998, Jimenez was familiar with cannabis. After spending more than a decade gathering health statistics for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she knew that CBD was gaining popularity as a health supplement. She was intrigued by the possibility of growing hemp on their farm in Mount Horeb, reviving the old dairy farm that had lain shuttered for years.
Kattia Jimenez and John Eichorst in the office of the Mount Horeb Hemp Company. They’re among a handful of people trying to pioneer the return of the plant in Wisconsin.
“Hemp has the potential to transform the way we live,” says Jimenez. “It can change the way we build our homes, replace paper made from trees, replace plastic, replace some pharmaceuticals, and give farmers a new crop that may save their farms.”
Industrial hemp looks and smells like traditional marijuana. You can smoke them both, but only one will get you high. Wisconsin considers industrial hemp to be a cannabis sativa plant that has had the psychoactive compound THC bred out of it.
Hemp growers in Wisconsin must obtain a license from the state and use seed or plants that contain only trace levels of THC. Farmers must provide the state with the exact coordinates of where they’ll be growing. In the summer, agents from the Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) inspect fields and cut plant samples to test for THC — if they show more than the legal limit, the plants must be destroyed. Lawmakers also barred anyone with a felony drug conviction from growing hemp.
A century ago, Wisconsin was a leader in hemp production. It was grown mainly for rope and fiber, enjoying a boon during the war years when imported fibers were scarce. A 1918 bulletin from UW-Madison declared that Wisconsin had 7,000 acres under cultivation, including six acres “on the asylum farm at Mendota” and three acres “on the prison farm at Waupun.” It proudly proclaimed “hemp is the best smother crop for all kinds of weeds,” and noted that while it appears occasionally as a volunteer plant, “it does not become a weed.” Fast forward 100 years and feral hemp, better known as ditch weed, can still be found haunting farms across the state.
But thanks to the decades-old federal ban on the cultivation of cannabis, today’s hemp industry looks more like a business start-up than an established industry (historical records date cultivation of cannabis sativa to China in 8,000 B.C.).
“Truthfully, we don’t have any expertise in the department in the agronomy of growing hemp,” says DATCP spokesperson Donna Gilson. “For 70 years, we didn’t grow hemp in Wisconsin and so we lost that knowledge.”
The rebirth of the industry has involved growing pains. Of the 183 growers who registered with the state last year, only 139 reported planting anything. Some couldn’t find seed. Rumors spread about farmers getting ripped off by unscrupulous seed dealers who flocked to Wisconsin to take advantage of the new market. Many who did plant faced a wet spring that left standing water in their fields and wiped out their crop. Others found they planted their seeds too deep, resulting in poor germination and competition from weeds. Twenty-one farms failed the THC tests — some by only a fraction of a percent — and lost their harvest.
And when it wasn’t the weather, it was the cops. Because it’s not easy to tell a hemp field from a marijuana field, some skeptical sheriffs threatened to arrest hemp growers or seize their plants. DATCP says it fielded quite a few calls from law enforcement wanting to know if hemp really is legal.
“Local authorities were not really reinformed of the DOJ’s rollback in May,” says Abby Testaberg of Kinni Hemp in River Falls. “So a lot of issues happened where the local police departments are saying ‘hey, you can’t be doing this.’”
Then Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel didn’t help matters last spring by declaring CBD oil illegal without a prescription. The backlash from the farm lobby was swift and he quickly rescinded his statement, promising not to prosecute farmers for growing hemp for CBD. But many police departments didn’t get the second memo.
And then there are thieves. Larry Konopacki, a Madison attorney who drafted the state’s hemp law for the Legislature, says he heard about a lot of theft from farm fields this year. It’s unclear whether thieves mistake hemp for marijuana or actually know what it is. Either way, “there’s so much actual value,” he says. “It’s $350 a pound to wholesale to a smoke shop. It doesn’t approach the value of black market marijuana, but it’s still worth stealing.”
State officials say that there were 1,850 acres planted in fields across the state last year but they have no idea how many pounds of hemp were harvested. Farmers turned in their paperwork in December, but the department hasn’t yet compiled the data.
The number is sure to be miniscule compared to corn production. Wisconsin farmers harvested 3 million acres in 2018. Commodity corn fetches around $700 an acre. CBD hemp? That can go for around $40,000 an acre.
State employees take samples of hemp plants last summer at the Mount Horeb Hemp Company to be tested for THC content. If they contain more than .3 percent, they must be destroyed. These passed the test.
But unlike corn, it’s hard to get a loan to grow hemp. Banks wouldn’t touch it due to the federal prohibitions and credit card processors charge more due to the risk. Lisa Schueler, an agricultural lender at Heartland Credit Union, says there’s still too many unknowns.
“There’s not a lot of resources out there about it. People are just starting to test out growing it. What grows best in the soil in Wisconsin? What seeds can you use? You have to find a way to dry it,” she says. “And let’s say you’re making CBD oil, there’s some legalities to be clarified there, too. Then you have to extract the oil from the plant. How are you going to do that and who is available to do that?
“With corn, you have all those systems in place right now,” she adds. “People growing corn have some place to store it and dry it and sell it.”
Jimenez and Eichorst made about $20,000 from their half-acre of plants, which they sold to a local wellness company that turned the flowers into CBD oil. Jimenez says they turned a profit this year despite the steep startup costs. The state license and registration cost $500 and the seeds more than $1,600. They also hired a lawyer to set up an LLC and paid for a website. They had to buy sprinklers, stakes, landscape fabric, a mower, a dehumidifier, storage bins and locks for the barn doors. The machine to help them trim the plants set them back $3,000 — and it’s just a consumer grade model. They’re hoping to trade up for a bigger industrial one this year. And then there’s the fees for the mandatory state testing to prove that their plants don’t contain more than 0.3 percent THC. That’s another $250 out the door. They also needed a lab to test how much cannabidiol or CBD — the valuable compound — is in the plant. Yet another bill.
Despite the steep learning curve, they’re excited by all they’ve learned, and are planning to expand their operation to at least 3 acres this year. They recently purchased a water-wheel transplanter for their tractor so they can plant their seedlings faster come spring.
While a half-acre would be tiny for a corn and soybean farm, hemp grown for CBD oil is typically produced on small plots due to the manual labor involved. Similar to how marijuana is harvested, farmers stand on a ladder and use loppers or a handsaw to harvest the flower — it has to be done by hand to avoid damaging the buds. A typical acre can fit up to 2,500 hemp plants, towering overhead like 6- to 8-foot-tall Christmas trees.
“John and I thought that we’d bring the plants in and we’d spend a couple weekends, maybe a couple nights after work, and then we’ll be done with the harvest, but no,” says Jimenez of the October harvest. “They call it croptober for a reason. The whole month is spent bringing the plants in, drying them, and processing them.”
The drying step is crucial in order to prevent mold from ruining the crop, and the amount of space needed to dry the crop is often overlooked. Eichorst and Jimenez both juggle farm chores around full-time jobs. Jimenez works for UW; Eichorst is an electrician. But they’re passionate about the industry and its potential for helping people.
“There’s a huge market out there for CBD right now,” agrees Rob Richard, who advocated for the creation of the state’s hemp law when he worked for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation. “People are looking for different avenues to deal with inflammation, anxiety, neuropathy, things of that sort. And considering the opioid crisis we have going on in this state and the country, people are excited to look and find a different avenue for the maladies they have, versus going the opioid route.”
That was the case for Misty Poehnelt of Medford, in northern Wisconsin. She started her company, Black River Hemp, because of her family’s experience with prescription drug abuse.
“Opiates destroyed my family,” she says. “They took my mom’s life. My older sister committed suicide. So I’ve always stayed away from any kind of antidepressant or opiate.”
When she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago while pregnant, she started looking around for natural pain relief and found hemp. Several years later, post-mastectomy, Poehnelt is now cancer-free and has two healthy children, and she credits hemp with helping her through those rough times. Her days are now spent homeschooling her kids and growing her fledgling hemp business.
Last year, she raised an acre of plants on her farm in Taylor County, mainly for dried smokable flower. She and her husband had no experience with hemp, but “we jumped in and figured it out along the way,” she says. She sought out social media to learn growing methods. Friends and neighbors with farming equipment pitched in to help her till, plant and harvest. “I would stay up late after my kids went to bed. I’d put lamps out there on my deck and stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning transplanting all the little plants.”
Misty Poehnelt and her husband, Derek, started the Black River Hemp Company and grew an acre of hemp plants on their Taylor County farm last year. They sold their first products at the Central Wisconsin Hemp Expo in Marshfield in November.
CBD oil isn’t the only use for hemp — it’s just the most profitable and developed market in the state. Hemp grown for food and fiber is what interests many row crop farmers. This type of hemp is planted with a grain drill and grown in tightly spaced rows for tall thin plants. The plants are harvested with a combine and sold to processors, where they’re dehulled or pressed for food-grade oil. The shelled seed, often called hemp nuts, hemp hearts or simply hemp seeds, look like sesame seeds and are high in protein. They are added to granolas and nutritional bars, sprinkled on salads and blended into smoothies. The strong, tough stalks can be turned into textiles or building materials.
Legacy Hemp in Prescott is currently recruiting farmers to grow food-grade industrial hemp. They sell farmers the seed and will buy the crop, but farmers must be willing to grow at least 50 acres. Legacy Hemp had 500 acres under contract last year across the Midwest, and they’re planning on scaling up to 10,000 acres this year. Bryan Parr, Legacy Hemp’s agronomist, says he’s finding interest from traditional commodity farmers in areas where corn prices are low. “They’re desperate to find anything that has any inkling of profitability,” he says. “It’s been corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans for so long and they’re not getting any further ahead than they were years ago.”
Legacy hopes to develop secondary markets for fiber and livestock feed to help farmers get added value for their stalks, in addition to the seeds. But Parr says those are quite a ways off.
One looming issue for Wisconsin’s blossoming hemp industry is the lack of consumer protections. There is currently no required product testing for hemp other than to measure the level of THC.
One safeguard for consumers looking for flowers grown without chemicals or pesticides is to look for the certified organic label. The USDA has allowed hemp to be certified as organic since 2016, though there’s currently a lack of organic seed to plant. MOSA, an organic certifier in Viroqua, lists only 14 farms in the Midwest, the majority of which are in Wisconsin, that are growing certified organic industrial hemp crops.
There currently aren’t any herbicides or pesticides approved for use on hemp in Wisconsin, but many farms are already using them on nearby crops. Because hemp was prohibited by the feds until a few months ago, and marijuana still is banned, pesticide regulation has fallen to the states. That is why Oregon requires marijuana grown there to be tested for pesticide residue and solvents, as well as salmonella and e-coli bacteria. It also tests CBD products for the potency of their cannabidiol and microbiological contaminants. Wisconsin doesn’t.
There is little research on the health effects of CBD. The FDA has approved just one cannabis-based drug — epidiolex, used to prevent epileptic seizures. Doctors point to the lack of large national peer-reviewed studies to determine appropriate dosage and efficacy as reason for caution. Because the plant was listed just a few months ago as a controlled substance by the DEA, public universities were unable to get federal or private funds to study it.
Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska, a family doctor who practices and researches addiction medicine at UW Health, remains skeptical of CBD. “The research on CBD oil has not been sufficient to say that this is evidence-based treatment for x, y or z,” she says.
In its first year in operation, the Black River Hemp Company produced and sold smokable flowers, cookies and CBD oil, shown above at the Central Wisconsin Hemp Expo.
She recognizes that interest is booming, but says, “Word of mouth doesn’t necessarily translate into evidence. There’s a lot of wishful thinking. I see a lot of patients who are starting on CBD oil hoping to achieve certain results which may not materialize later on.” She also does not encourage her patients “to smoke anything.”
“The short answer is that we don’t know yet,” she adds. “As a physician, I would love to see an FDA medication that contains a regulated substance that we know might help a certain population of people.”
But the industry is rapidly growing and research could begin soon. According to the Hemp Business Journal, the U.S. hemp industry is currently worth $800 million dollars. It projects it growing to nearly $2 billion in just a few years.
Accelerating the growth is the new U.S. farm bill, which Congress passed in December, that removed hemp from the DEA’s controlled substance list. Advocates call it a game-changer.
“We’ll look back on this day and know that that’s the day everything changed,” says Konopacki, the hemp industry lawyer. “That’s the day that we started to mainstream the tools we need to move the industry forward, whether that be crop insurance or lending or medical research so that you can get through the FDA process. It takes a lot of money to get an FDA approval for anything. That requires a basic amount of peer-reviewed science. Now this is possible.
“I know that there will be research this year,” Konopacki adds. “No doubt about it.”
DATCP reports that more than 1,000 people have contacted the agency for information about industrial hemp. The deadline to apply to grow this season is March 1.
Kattia Jimenez recently helped form the Wisconsin Hemp Alliance, a trade group to help hemp farmers.
As for Jimenez and Eichorst, they’re happy to be pioneers in the rebirth of the industry, even if it means learning everything the hard way, by trial and error. Jimenez has joined forces with Konopacki to set up the Wisconsin Hemp Alliance, a trade industry group for hemp farmers.
“What’s that saying...if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu?” Jimenez muses. “I just want a seat at the table of this growing industry. I have ideas and I want to help shape its future.”
