Midwest Hemp Is Still Getting Its Footing, But Growers Aren’t Giving Up Yet

Hemp is a hard crop to grow -- just ask Jay Kata.

“We were filthy and we were dirty and we were sweaty and it sucked and it was hot and it was miserable,” says Kata, who helps run 4M Farms in southeast Iowa.

So it was all the more heartbreaking when Kata and his colleagues had to burn it all down because it didn’t meet the federal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) threshold.

“I have a newborn baby, so I spent all summer, instead of playing with her, I was weeding a field,” says Kata. “And after all that, it’s like, that's cool, just going to light that on fire.”

Hemp production was legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, and while it left regulation up to individual states, it did mandate that compliant hemp test at or below 0.3% THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. Kata’s crop tested twice the legal limit.

And he wasn’t alone. About 13% of Iowa’s hemp crop came in above the legal limit. In Missouri, it was about 9%.