By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Allowing farmers to grow industrial hemp commercially would not serve as a gateway for them to start raising pot – Matt Alvord, an Indiana producer of hemp-based foods, said that’s what he wants lawmakers with a hang-up about the idea in his state to realize.

“Opening the market up to farmers to grow it isn’t going to have an increase in people growing marijuana,” said Alvord, whose family operation, Alive Foods, Inc., is in Angola in the northeastern part of the state.

The first meeting of the state legislative Interim Study Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources was August 6 at Purdue University, where hemp is legal to grow strictly for research. The committee’s goal is to recommend by early November how the commercial production of hemp with just trace amounts of THC should be regulated.

When it meets in January, the state legislature will deliberate whether to legalize it.

Farmers like Don Zolman believe there’s already a market for hemp and want another revenue source, particularly now with agriculture struggling economically. ‘’It’s just another crop we can have in our toolbox to help make our farms profitable,” he said.

Zolman, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on 3,500 acres in Kosciusko County, said he plans on adding hemp to his rotation. He’s been in touch with producers in other states learning how to grow hemp, and doing it efficiently. “It’s a crop whose time has come.”

Kentucky and just a handful of other states now allow hemp to be commercially produced. Brian Furnish said hemp is not a cure-all for struggling farmers, but the eighth-generation tobacco grower now makes more money selling hemp than tobacco.

He added hemp in 2014 to his 2,000-acre farm 30 miles north of Lexington, Ky., to help offset lower consumer demand for tobacco. Furnish had gone from raising hemp on a half-acre to 350 acres.

“The more we can be diversified the better chance we have,” he explained.

Alive Foods, founded in 2002, offers more than 40 hemp-based food products including crackers and salad dressings. Alvord said there’s been enough consumer demand for his company to go from a two-car garage to a 10,000 square-foot facility.

He said the hemp used in his products is imported from Canada, with orders usually arriving within a week. And shipping costs are much higher than what he would pay to have hemp from an Indiana supplier delivered in 24 hours or less.

“It would just be nice to be able to get something that’s coming only a couple of hundred miles instead of a thousand miles,” he said.

Zolman said hemp as a cash crop in Indiana would probably not take off right away, but with consumer markets already established in some areas conditions are primed for hemp to eventually to have real impact. The longer the state waits, though, its potential could shrink if more states looking into the possibility begin producing it commercially.

“It’s something Indiana just doesn’t want to get too far behind on because we’ll just get shut out of the process,” he noted.

The committee at its first meeting toured Purdue’s hemp program to learn how the plant’s fibers, stalks and seed oil are used in a variety of products. Alvord said the hemp protein powder he imports is ground into flour for making sweet to savory snack crackers. His salad dressings are made from hemp oil.

Alvord said he has 10 full-time and three part-time employees. Tapping into Indiana-grown hemp would give him a better chance to grow his company even more because he could pass along the huge savings on shipping to the consumer.

Legalizing commercial production of hemp passed out of the Indiana House during the 2018 legislative session. The state Senate assigned the issue to the summer study committee due to concerns over how to best regulate it.

State Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie) supports growing it commercially to benefit farmers and feels there’s nothing to alarmed about industrial hemp being a cousin to marijuana. He said the THC level in industrial hemp is so low he would have to drink 60 gallons of CBD oil derived from hemp in one sitting “to have the same amount of impact as if I drank one 12-ounce can of beer.

“I’m not concerned with it being an illegal substance,” he said.