My husband and I live and farm on one of my family’s oldest homeplaces, the site of the historic Watts Ferry crossing on the Kentucky River. Bordered by the river on one side and the Watts Branch Creek (aka Seven Creeks) on the other, our farm produced hemp fiber during the early 1900s.
We decided to reintroduce cannabis on our family land because of this crop’s potential to add value to Kentucky’s small farms due to the plant’s myriad beneficial uses. Different varieties of agricultural hemp yield a multitude of diverse products ranging from fiber (tree‐free paper, fabric, and fiberboard) to biofuels (from seed oils and cellulose fibers) to biodegradable plastics (from hemp seed resin) to edible seed (a super food that contains protein, B‐vitamins, and Omega fatty acids) to CBD (cannabidiol) and other cannabinoids that are being studied for antioxidant and neuro‐protectant properties (used for general wellness). All this from a sustainable, annual crop.