# What Farmers Need To Know About Growing Hemp.



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Successful Farming.

Regards, Mike

https://www.agriculture.com/news/crops/what-farmers-need-to-know-about-growing-hemp


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Interesting that:

1. the expert is not a producer or marketer or manufacturer;

2. the risk of going over the 0.3 limit is not quantified;

3. no actual markets are identified, just fluffy statements, where is the real ongoing market;

4 there are no projected returns;

5. clearly there is a market for seed to sell to those entering the industry, that is until growth in plantings stops;

6. lack of value-adding manufacturing plants is not addressed;

7. competition from other producers has not even been mentioned. What happens if Australia, Argentina and Brazil for example pick up on the low THC plantings?

I have seen many "sunrise agriculture industries come and go. Often for the same reason- there is no real ongoing market. I have seen jo joba beans, alpacas, deer farming, ostriches, and emus for example, Ostriches were touted here as a huge possibility and in the startup growth stage, ostriches were fetching $1000 per head per month of growth up to about 8 or 10 months of age. These were the stud breeding stock to establish the industry, which was to produce and market at huge prices feathers, meat and leather products

Every part of the bird was marketable even the guts etc as fertiliser. What happened: no processing plants, no leather market no feather market no fertiliser market few carved emu eggs and the hopefuls paying huge money for the little feather dusters lost heavily and that did not include their infrastructure outlays: fencing, shedding, transporters, handling equipment.

The only sunrise industry I see as viable in the long term in Australia is sandalwood. Sandalwood is a hemi-parasitic tree that has a couple of varieties native to Australia. Sandalwood is used in perfume making, joss sticks and features heavily in Asian cultures. Our native sandalwood is already fetching $10,000 per tonne however the more desireable tropical sandalwood can fetch up to $100,000 per tonne. As Asia becomes more affluent the demand for sandalwood is rising. There is in my view a real market.

Could be wrong but I for one would not be rushing into the industry.

.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I seen a ad on CL for hemp seed.$2000 per acre.Yea,I'll jump right on that,lol.

Coondle,I forgot about the Emu fad.Was a few tried it here.Paid some crazy amount for breeding stock.No market for them when they had some to sell.The one guy tried butchering one to eat,was tough as shoe leather.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> I seen a ad on CL for hemp seed.$2000 per acre.Yea,I'll jump right on that,lol.
> 
> Coondle,I forgot about the Emu fad.Was a few tried it here.Paid some crazy amount for breeding stock.No market for them when they had some to sell.The one guy tried butchering one to eat,was tough as shoe leather.


It got so far here on the US left coast there was a small slaughter facility that processed some emu and ostriches. The facility is still in operation processing grass fed beef as well doing hogs and sheep for the raise my own food small land owner bunch. So maybe would still do a emu.

I was in the right place at the right time thing and was given a piece or 2 of emu jerky. So I too have had some emu shoe leather  :huh: ,not that bad  .


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Yeah, I've seen and heard and read about any number of these things... it's all warm smoke up your butt until there's an established market DEMAND for the stuff. Sure there's money to be made in the 'flash in the pan' phase if you want to take advantage of 'early adopters' and can sell seed or breeding stock or whatever, but being a PRODUCER requires an ESTABLISHED MARKET for whatever it is...

A few years back the big thing in this area was "kenaf"... it's sorta like sorghum-sudan but basically you harvest the stalks and feed them through a cotton gin to produce fiber from the stalks. Harvest basically like round bales, but when it's dry standing cane poles, and they fiddled with a gin and retooled part of it to feed it kenaf into the gin stand... slower than Christmas and the demand never materialized. Cotton is dirt cheap to buy (though expensive as h3ll to grow) and WHY would there be a "need" for an "alternative" fiber crop anyway?? Some guys farted with it a few years and it disappeared.

Some guys in the next county over have been growing sesame... that one actually looked pretty good; its a cheap crop to grow and harvest with a bean head on the combine, just gotta seal the combine up real good to keep it from dribbling half the "grain" out on the ground. There's some pretty good market demands for it and the only thing *really* lacking is a good *local* buyer chain (elevators/contractors willing to take it off your hands). I haven't seen much over the last couple years though, so I guess it's petering out.

Dad grew a crop of guar beans back when I was a little LITTLE kid. It too was another "wonder crop" that was going to be "the coming thing". They were using it to make glue for book binding. He grew it one year (bout like growing soybeans) and that was that. Made some money but nobody was willing to sell a contract for it the following year, so I guess they didn't need it anymore.

Anyway, I don't buy in on ANY of these "miracle crop" or "miracle livestock" nonsense until there's some stable, demonstrable DEMAND for the stuff and someplace local to sell it...

Later! OL J R


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

In regard to Emu meat. I have only tried it once. My father had a development block of land, virgin eucalyptus forest that we were clearing. great but the downside was that the block was surrounded for 90% of its perimeter by government owned forest and the government does nothing about keeping its wildlife at home. As a consequence grain crops were shared with the government owned wildlife, and as with anything government they took the biggest share. Literally hundreds of kangaroos and hundreds of emus. Kangaroos by night and emus by day. Emus sure know how to strip a crop with those beaks, Eat and eat then throw up and go right back eating. Gun and vehicle shy. At the sound of a vehicle take off at 30+ mph through the crop knocking down anything not eaten. Hit a fence at 30 +MPH with a wedge shape and burst right through and those legs are like steel and kick a fence apart.

Any way back to the meat, the legs are delicious, slow roasted with seasoning, red meat, no fat, texture like beef and tasted good with a wild taste overtone.


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