CADDO PARISH, La. (KTAL/KMSS) Louisiana farmers will soon be able to grow hemp.
The Department of Agriculture just submitted its first draft to the USDA. Once approved, farmers can buy hemp seeds and grow them on their land.
Farmers must be licensed and meet USDA requirements which including the plants cannot contain more than .3-percent of THC.
Officials expect to have crops planted by the spring.
“We’ll initially estimating between 100 and 200 growers and so it will probably start off fairly small and could increase dramatically. If you look, we have over 8 million acres of row crops now. We could probably have estimates between 50 and 100-thousand acres of hemp in the next year,” said Mike Strain, Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner.
LSU and Southern University will offer educational classes on how to grow hemp.
