Industrial Hemp in Colorado Progressing
Duane Sinning, Assistant Director of Plant Industries with CDA and oversees the industrial hemp program. Colorado has a voluntary industrial hemp program that allows growers to apply for registration. This, which has been around since 2014. Eighty-five hundred acres and 1.1 million square feet of indoor acres have been registered for 2016. Locations are scattered throughout the mostly in Ag areas. Sinning adds that because of the growth, the CDA has went from two part-time employees to three full time employees. Two handle the 350 -plus registrations and and one that handles the seed certifications program of industrial hemp. Challenges for registrants have included banking issues since hemp was federally illegal. Furthermore, they have had issues importing and exporting seed and trying to get questions answered from federal agencies because it is still illegal federally. Higher education research has been lagging because of hesitancy regarding hemp be...