How many of us local folks (those who grew up here in Lexington)
have had the impression that the tobacco industry and the
thoroughbred horse industry were the two mainstays of Lexington's
economy?
Since I was a small lad, the annual Blue Grass Review, a section
of a January Herald – Leader Sunday edition, made grand statements
and projections about all of the recent sales or the upcoming season
for both industries. These were can't miss fields to be in.
Therefore, I was quite surprised to see this clipping from the
June 30, 1938 Lexington paper:
In 1888, the largest crop grown in this county was hemp.Twenty-four percent of the world's output was produced here.Now we grow only about forty acres of hemp. Formerly the hemp house was as much a part of the farm equipment as the dairy or the stable. Now, the hemp house has given away to the larger tobacco barn and the horse barns.
In 40 years and
two significant wars, Fayette County would abdicate its place as a
world leader of beneficial raw goods and replace it with products
associated with vice and addiction. Yes, I do know that local
farmers have been raising horses and racing horses since before the
Civil War but horses were not the only line of work. The modern
thoroughbred operation of today began with the introduction of
corporate style funding (syndicates and the like).
Hemp, basically
a weed, is about as easy to grow as hay or sod and without the
extensive level land requirement. The hard part is in the harvesting
and processing of the fibers. Did it make a lot of sense to switch
to tobacco, a much more labor intensive production process and
susceptible to more blights or diseases?
The
decline in production may have its roots in the The
Marihuana Tax Act Of 1937, which did not directly outlaw the
growing of hemp but put a tax on every entity who dealt with the raw
material. Although the tax was just $1 a year in most cases, the
penalties of not registering and paying were substantial.
Given the quote from the newspaper
account, the tax was be placed on a sizable number of Fayette County
farmers during a time when they were trying to climb out of the Great
Depression. Not a good economic move there Congress.
There may be some defense for
Congress since it was thought, at the time, that hemp fibers could
replace wood chip fibers in paper production. Such a move could have
threatened the powerful William Randolph Hearst and his vast timber
holdings from which he got his newsprint.
Further complicating the economic
landscape was the inclusion of the Cannabis family of plants
in the 1925 revision of the International Opium Convention as a drug.
The Boggs Act of 1952 is the first time in federal drug legislation
that marihuana and narcotic drugs were lumped together, but the
damage had already been done. In 1970 any cultivation of Cannabis plants what-so-ever was banned in the U.S.
More recently, at least since the
mid-1990s, automobile parts manufacturers in Europe have been
developing a process to use bio-mass fibers as a raw material. These
fibers have included soy, switchgrass and hemp. The technology has
been around since the late '30s so it is nothing new.
In 1941, Henry Ford made an
experimental car body out of organic fibers that included hemp. As a
demonstration, it was struck with an ax handle without damage to
anything but the ax handle – it broke. Sadly, production costs
proved to be too high, raw materials in short supply and World War II
intervened, or we may have had many more lighter weight, auto-bodies
when the “muscle car” engines developed. Imagine the Corvette
with a bio-fiber shell rather than fiberglass or the polycarbonate
shell of the old Saturn line which tended to shatter in colder
climes.
Hemp
is legally grown by 29 countries around the world at present
and most will export many products made from that hemp. China,
Russia and Korea produce a lion's share of those exports yet each
year the U.S. government identifies those countries that it considers
to be drug-exporting nations and they are not on the list. We
Americans can legally import hemp products from as close as Canada
but we cannot join the global market place or become hemp
independent or export our own.
A number of our state's leaders wish to change the status quo and position Kentucky to proudly return to leading the world in hemp production, employing many farmers in the process. This week the The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce joined Agriculture Commissioner James Comer in supporting legislation allowing hemp production. Federal law still stands in the way, yet fully half of the our state's Congressional delegation have stated support of efforts to legalize growing hemp.
Not all farmers can get in the horse business and the tobacco business has just about dried up. Our produce farmers and remaining dairy/cattle farmers are scrapping for what tillable land there is left. Hemp can be grown on more marginal land and we still have some of that, especially in the more eastern region where they need the help.
Hemp legislation can be done in a reasonable and safe manner if we try. Let us all try to be proud Kentuckians, employed proud Kentuckians.
1 comment:
Nice article. I find it interesting that, here in KY, the push for hemp legislation has been kickstarted politically by the right--tea partiers and, as you point out above, even the chamber of commerce. I don't know what to make of that, except that it should (but hasn't yet) be a point of common interest in a divided political body. I'm glad you posit hemp production as a more democratic use of area agricultural land than horse farming--which we can't eat or make useful products from. Heck, even thoroughbred horse manure isn't much help if it comes from drugged up horses.
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