When the 2014 Farm Bill passed, Chad Rosen knew the provisions for industrial hemp could mean good business. The bill provided that, for the first time in about 70 years, hemp could be grown legally in the state of Kentucky (as well as nine other states, all under a five year research period). The native Californian made a move from San Diego to the Bluegrass State to take root in the open field of opportunity.
Hemp has long been a hotly-contested crop. It’s a member of the cannabis sativa family, just like it’s more famous relative, marijuana. The distinguishing factor is that hemp has an exponentially lower amount of THC. “Just like all dogs are canines, a lot of those canines have very different phenotypical traits,” Rosen says. “A greywolf has really long sharp teeth, a chihuahua is really annoying and has a sharp shrill bark, so those are phenotypical traits. So just like that cannabis sativa has this one phenotypical trait that we're looking for, which is the amount of THC. And if it's less than 0.3% THC, our government defines it as industrial hemp.”
This important distinction allowed Rosen to found Victory Hemp Foods, a company that produces organic hemp products like oil, protein powder, flour, and de-hulled seeds. He launched the company in June of 2016, not just seeing opportunity for himself but for all of Kentucky.
Tobacco left a gaping hole in the Kentucky economy. The state once economically subsisted almost entirely on family tobacco farms, but between deregulation, buyouts and a drastic change in demand, it no longer offers a livelihood to Kentucky farmers. Between 1997 and 2015, the number of U.S. tobacco farms dropped by more than 95 percent — 93,330 to 4,268. What few tobacco farms still exist are mostly found in the Carolinas and Tennessee. But even before tobacco reigned supreme in Kentucky, hemp was a vital cash crop there, grown for use as riggings on naval ships since the late 1700s.
In 1936, the movie “Reefer Madness” was released to frighten young people away from marijuana. A year later, as the intended craze swept the country, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which criminalized the drug. This legislation ultimately meant that industrial hemp production also came to a screeching halt. It resumed in 1942 when the USDA produced the video “Hemp for Victory,” encouraging farmers to resume growing the crop to support the war effort. Farmers in Kentucky and elsewhere produced the crop, which was ultimately used to make parachutes, ropes, webbings, shoes, clothes and other vital products. Farmers who grew hemp for the war effort were dually rewarded. Yet still, in 1957, the crop was outlawed again as part of drug-related legislation.
Rosen saw the possibilities, and he launched a business named in honor of hemp’s wartime purpose. “I started to see all the different uses for hemp, so that’s how I got focused on the hemp foods, because I saw that it's in 7000 retailers in North America and we import 98% of our hemp foods from Canada,” he says. “I thought that it was just the perfect place for an entrepreneur to sink his teeth in. And also given the potential impact it could have, I knew that if it wasn't done right, it would just be another failure of ag to have an impact where it really could.”
When Rosen talks about impact, he’s got his eye on several factors. He wants to create products that are sustainable, in terms of how they were grown and how they’re commodified. He wants to offer foods that are nutritious. He wants to educate consumers on the value of hemp. And he wants to put fair wages in farmers’ pockets by providing a supply chain for a crop that could replace the revenue tobacco once provided. He’s only a little more than a year into his business with Victory Hemp Foods, but he’s succeeding on all fronts.
“We have such strong potential to create an enormous amount of demand and demand is always good for farmers,” he says. “If demand can outrace supply, farmers would be in good shape, right? And so if we don't talk about it as hemp, and we just look at the nutritional profile, it's absolutely amazing. It's got all nine essential amino acids, and proteins are just amino acids, so it's a complete plant-based protein, it has more digestible protein than, say, soy or flax or chia ... It's an amazing protein.”
It’s a matter of creating a demand for high quality products, made from a sustainably sourced crop. This is how farmers can receive parity, which is fair pricing that compensates for all inputs — something that hasn’t happened in Kentucky since the heyday of tobacco.
“So, not that I've figured out a way for it to have this great impact and restore all our small family farms, but it definitely has the potential and I think that it's going to come down to the policies that processors and the philosophies that processors kind of build this industry through … I mean we have the most amount of small family farms in Kentucky, and you also have the highest declining rate of small family farms, and so how does hemp fit into that?”
It’s a deeply important question. All of the elements are in place for hemp to succeed in Kentucky: the farmers can grow it; there’s infrastructure for things like dairy farming, but the dairy farms are gone, so the infrastructure can be used for hemp milk; and it can be made into high end, highly-desirable value added products. Aside from oil, protein powder, flower and de-hulled seeds, Victory Hemp Foods collaborates with other artisanal food purveyors to create things like hemp chocolate, whipped hemp heart honey and hemp pasta.
It’s too soon to say whether hemp will be the answer Kentucky farmers have been waiting for, but it’s likely to play a role in redeeming the rural economy. And Victory Hemp Foods is at the forefront of making that possible.
Story by Jodi Cash
Photos by Ethan Payne