Posted on Mar 29, 2022
Black farmers see new opportunities in the budding industrial hemp industry
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There’s a glaring disparity issue in industrial hemp production — just 6% of producers are Black. A couple in Missouri hopes to create the state’s first Black-owned hemp processing site.
Just northwest of Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, past Mennonites in horse drawn buggies, there’s a curvy road that leads to a forgotten piece of Missouri’s Black history – Lake Placid.
The Black-owned cabin retreat thrived in the mid-1900s. P.C. Turner, a doctor from Kansas City, designed it as a place of restoration and refuge for Black families across the state during segregation. But over the decades, many of the once sought-after cabins fell into disrepair.
“We’ve got what I call dilapidation – buildings with no walls,” said Brendalyn King.
Just northwest of Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, past Mennonites in horse drawn buggies, there’s a curvy road that leads to a forgotten piece of Missouri’s Black history – Lake Placid.
The Black-owned cabin retreat thrived in the mid-1900s. P.C. Turner, a doctor from Kansas City, designed it as a place of restoration and refuge for Black families across the state during segregation. But over the decades, many of the once sought-after cabins fell into disrepair.
“We’ve got what I call dilapidation – buildings with no walls,” said Brendalyn King.
Black farmers see new opportunities in the budding industrial hemp industry
Posted from kcur.orgPosted in these groups: 
Farming
Agriculture
Farming Agriculture
Posted 2 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first-ever survey of hemp production released last month found a glaring diversity issue: Just 6% of hemp growers are Black in an industry worth nearly $825 million. Cannabis has been a hard market for people of color to break into, but some, including King, hope hemp offers a new way in.
“We want to be a Black-owned hemp processor. We want that to be a part of our legacy,” she said. “We moved here for this. We got a little side tracked, little forks in the road but it ended up being a nice road to be landed on.”
King grew up in St. Louis, while Doyle was born in Trinidad and Tobago. They met in Brooklyn, New York more than a decade before deciding to pack up and pursue hemp farming in the Midwest. In 2020, the couple moved to the St. Louis area on a promise to buy land in Illinois.
But their two growing seasons were tough. First, they lost money because they didn’t have a buyer lined up to purchase their hemp flower. In the second season, a rain storm destroyed much of the crop. Then suddenly, the deal to buy the land fell through.
“We felt like we were leading ourselves,” King said.
Leon Moses, farm superintendent at North Carolina A&T State University, said the challenges to growing hemp for Black farmers have largely stayed the same since the crop was federally legalized for production in 2018. He helped bring a research-based industrial hemp program to the historically Black institution in 2016.
“I don’t see a lot of opportunity, but I do see opportunity,” he said.
Moses said the biggest barrier for Black farmers is access to land and capital. Dramatic land loss over generations has left Black farmers with about 1% of all farmland in the country."...
..."The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s first-ever survey of hemp production released last month found a glaring diversity issue: Just 6% of hemp growers are Black in an industry worth nearly $825 million. Cannabis has been a hard market for people of color to break into, but some, including King, hope hemp offers a new way in.
“We want to be a Black-owned hemp processor. We want that to be a part of our legacy,” she said. “We moved here for this. We got a little side tracked, little forks in the road but it ended up being a nice road to be landed on.”
King grew up in St. Louis, while Doyle was born in Trinidad and Tobago. They met in Brooklyn, New York more than a decade before deciding to pack up and pursue hemp farming in the Midwest. In 2020, the couple moved to the St. Louis area on a promise to buy land in Illinois.
But their two growing seasons were tough. First, they lost money because they didn’t have a buyer lined up to purchase their hemp flower. In the second season, a rain storm destroyed much of the crop. Then suddenly, the deal to buy the land fell through.
“We felt like we were leading ourselves,” King said.
Leon Moses, farm superintendent at North Carolina A&T State University, said the challenges to growing hemp for Black farmers have largely stayed the same since the crop was federally legalized for production in 2018. He helped bring a research-based industrial hemp program to the historically Black institution in 2016.
“I don’t see a lot of opportunity, but I do see opportunity,” he said.
Moses said the biggest barrier for Black farmers is access to land and capital. Dramatic land loss over generations has left Black farmers with about 1% of all farmland in the country."...
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