June 25, 1999

From The Lexington Herald-Leader
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By Janet Patton, Business Writer

ANIMAL BEDDING TO COSMETICS, HEMP SEEN AS VIABLE KENTUCKY CROP

PARIS— The Body Shop met the tack shop yesterday on a Bourbon County horse farm. "This is what Kentucky should be," said Andy Graves, president of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association. "Tobacco, horses ..." "And hemp," finished Anita Roddick, founder and co-chair of The Body Shop, a $1.3 billion British-based international skin products company that uses hemp in a handful of its most successful products.

Roddick and Graves visited Arthur Hancock’s Stone Farm yesterday to witness an experiment in the comforts hemp could bring to horses. A stall on the Hancock farm was filled with hemp animal bedding made from the hurds, the pulp of the stalk.

The bedding, imported from Canada, costs about $5 a bag, Graves said, but it lasts longer than straw or wood chips and composts faster. "It’s three times more absorbent than cotton," he said. The hurd bedding clumps together, somewhat like cat litter.

And that could speed up the cleaning of the stalls, Hancock said. Instead of taking all morning to clean a barn, the manure and urine clumps could be removed in minutes.

At 16 barns every day, "that adds up over a year’s time," he said. Hancock plans to test it beginning today with one of his top yearlings—McCreary, a colt who has the same sire as Bluegrass Stakes winner Menifee. "Think about this for yearlings," Hancock said as he tested the cushioning in the stall. "A lot more shock absorbing." The co-op plans to bring some of the bedding to Darby Dan farm in Fayette County and let managers at both farms share their thoughts on the product. "This could be a good source of alternative bedding for us," said David Switzer, executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association—especially if the cost is brought down by growing it here in Kentucky. However, it is illegal to grow hemp as an industrial crop in the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration bans hemp because it is considered legally the same as marijuana.

At least four states have passed laws allowing it to be grown if the DEA grants them permits.

See
"If an applicant establishes adequate security controls
and satisfies the other requirements for registration,
DEA will issue a registration to cultivate 0.3 percent THC hemp for industrial uses."
-- DEA Letter

Hancock wouldn’t mind raising hemp along with horses and tobacco. "I think it could be a good cash crop," he said. "As a Kentucky farmer, the only thing I’ve been able to make money on is tobacco and horses." Hemp is a market Roddick would like to help Kentucky farmers get into. The Body Shop’s philosophy of providing naturally based products in a way that is both environmentally and economically sustainable has led to many partnerships with growers’ cooperatives. Roddick offered her financial assistance to the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association in Kentucky. She paid for the newspaper and radio ads publicizing the co-op’s annual convention Saturday. Her company began selling products incorporating hemp oil about 2 years ago, and the seven or eight products now account for 10 percent of total sales, Roddick said. She buys 12 tons of organic hemp seed oil a year and imports it to the United States.

FOUNDER OF THE BODY SHOP SEES HEMP AS VIABLE KENTUCKY CROP

June 26, 1999
From The Lexington Herald-Leader
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By Janet Patton, Lexington Herald-Leader

Jun. 25--PARIS, Ky.—The Body Shop met the tack shop yesterday on a Bourbon County horse farm.

"This is what Kentucky should be," said Andy Graves, president of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association. "Tobacco, horses..."

"And hemp," finished Anita Roddick, founder and co-chair of The Body Shop, a $1.3 billion British-based international skin products company that uses hemp in a handful of its most successful products.

Roddick and Graves visited Arthur Hancock’s Stone Farm yesterday to witness an experiment in the comforts hemp could bring to horses.

"It’s three times more absorbent than cotton," he said.

The hurd bedding clumps together, somewhat like cat litter. And that could speed up the cleaning of the stalls, Hancock said. Instead of taking all morning to clean a barn, the manure and urine clumps could be removed in minutes. At 16 barns every day, "that adds up over a year’s time," he said.

Hancock plans to test it beginning today with one of his top yearlings—

McCreary, a colt who has the same sire as Bluegrass Stakes winner Menifee.

"Think about this for yearlings," Hancock said as he tested the cushioning in the stall. "A lot more shock absorbing."

The co-op plans to bring some of the bedding to Darby Dan farm in Fayette County and let managers at both farms share their thoughts on the product.

"This could be a good source of alternative bedding for us," said David Switzer, executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association— especially if the cost is brought down by growing it here in Kentucky.

However, it is illegal to grow hemp as an industrial crop in the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration bans hemp because it is considered legally the same as marijuana. At least four states have passed laws allowing it to be grown if the DEA grants them permits.

Hancock wouldn’t mind raising hemp along with horses and tobacco. "I think it could be a good cash crop," he said. "As a Kentucky farmer, the only thing I’ve been able to make money on is tobacco and horses."

Hemp is a market Roddick would like to help Kentucky farmers get into.

The Body Shop’s philosophy of providing naturally based products in a way that is both environmentally and economically sustainable has led to many partnerships with growers’ cooperatives.

Roddick offered her financial assistance to the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association in Kentucky. She paid for the newspaper and radio ads publicizing the co-op’s annual convention Saturday.

Her company began selling products incorporating hemp oil about 2 years ago, and the seven or eight products now account for 10 percent of total sales, Roddick said.

She buys 12 tons of organic hemp seed oil a year and imports it to the United States.

Copyright: 1999 Lexington Herald-Leader

HIGH TIME TO GROW HEMP IN KENTUCKY?

June 27, 1999
From The Lexington Herald-Leader
On Front Page, Business Section
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By Jim Jordan, Business Writer

"Where are the thousands who should be here?" the English businesswoman asked a crowd of about 100 at the fourth annual meeting of the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association.

Roddick, founder of the Body Shop cosmetics company that markets hemp products, drew a standing ovation when she urged farmers to "start bloody challenging your legislature" to pass a law like those in Hawaii, Minnesota and North Dakota to legalize hemp production.

Roddick and other speakers at the meeting, which appeared part education and part pep rally, said industrial hemp—once Kentucky’s No. 1 cash crop -- could be the answer for farmers needing an alternative to burley tobacco.

The main problem is hemp’s similarity to marijuana, although it lacks enough of the chemical known as THC to give smokers a high.

Various parts of the hemp plant, which can grow 10 feet in height, can be ingredients in building materials, car parts, plastics, clothing, cosmetics and food items, such as the coffee served at yesterday’s meeting.

Roddick and others see hemp as a way to save the family farm and the rural way of life from the threat posed by the decline of tobacco as a cash crop.

"What the hell is the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) doing denying farmers the right to grow a crop ordained by the Almighty," she said yesterday. "There is so much stupidity I think the script was written by Monty Python."

Lexington Mayor Pam Miller said Kentuckians must overcome their fears of being considered "drug-pushers" and work for a state hemp law.

"Kentucky ought to be in the forefront of this and not bringing up the rear," Miller said.

Switching crops and developing new markets is risky, she said, but "this is a risk that makes sense for Kentucky. This is the kind of thing we know how to do."

In Canada, Laprise said, the government has approved 15 varieties of hemp that farmers can plant using approved seed. Crops are tested annually at a cost to the farmer of about $100 to make sure THC levels remain low, he said.

See
Health Canada Has Received 750 Applications From Farmers To Grow Industrial Hemp,
And Has Approved More Than Two-Thirds Of Them.

Although some special equipment is required, hemp can be produced with the same equipment and facilities used by tobacco growers.

The crop is cut, dried for about three weeks and rolled into round bales, much like hay, that are trucked to processing plants.

Most farmers contract with processors who have buyers and markets for processed hemp. Setting up a processing plant is relatively simple, Laprise said. Developing markets for the processed hemp could be much tougher.

A farmer in the audience asked Laprise if there were problems with trespassers stealing leaves off hemp plants at Kenex farms.

"It happens, but it’s not that big of an issue," Laprise said. Thieves quickly learn that hemp is not marijuana, and they leave the hemp alone.