Kentucky Department of Agriculture hemp licensing application window open now through December 31

The window to use for the Kentucky Division of Agriculture’s 2023 hemp licensing program is now open.

“Regulatory inaction towards cannabinoids by the Meals and Drug Administration continues to hamper the nation’s hemp trade,” Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles stated. “As we enter the tenth rising season, we nonetheless consider this might sooner or later be a useful crop for Kentucky farmers, however we additionally encourage all hemp growers and processors to rigorously take into account the entire components on this trade.”

The Kentucky Division of Agriculture (KDA), which administers Kentucky’s hemp licensing program, is internet hosting an internet software portal on its hemp webpage, kyagr.com. Grower functions, together with renewals, have to be submitted by March 15, 2023. New processor/handler functions could also be submitted year-round. Annual processor/handler license renewals have to be submitted by Dec. 31.

Throughout final 12 months’s software interval, KDA licensed 240 hemp growers to domesticate as much as 5,530 acres and 93 hemp processors and handlers for 2022. Of the 240 hemp grower licenses, about 70 licensees planted hemp, rising simply over 1,300 acres this 12 months.

The 2022 numbers proceed to replicate nationwide traits for hemp manufacturing. In keeping with U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) crop acreage knowledge reported to the Farm Service Company, there have been 20,677 acres of hemp planted nationally in 2022. That’s down from 35,395 acres in 2021 and 147,471 reported to USDA in 2019.

Kentucky hemp processors and handlers, in an end-of-the-year submitting to the KDA, reported $43.5 million in gross product gross sales in 2021. That compares with $130 million in gross product gross sales in 2020 and $193 million in 2019. Processors reported spending $33.7 million on capital funding tasks in 2021 as in comparison with $138.9 million in capital funding in 2020, and $207.3 million in 2019.

For extra details about the KDA’s hemp program, go to kyagr.com.

Kentucky Division of Agriculture