Left Out of Hemp’s Renaissance, U.S. Farmers Continue Legal Battle

WASHINGTON, April 29, 2009 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — The Hemp Industries Association (HIA), a trade association consisting of hundreds of hemp businesses, has just released final estimates of the size of the U.S. retail market for hemp food and body care products in 2008. Data supporting the estimates show that retail sales of hemp food and body care products in the U.S. have continued to set records in 2008. Strong sales of popular hemp items like non-dairy milk, shelled hemp seed, soaps and lotions have occurred against the backdrop of state-licensed hemp farmers in North Dakota fighting a high stakes legal battle against the DEA to grow hemp for U.S. manufacturers. The new sales data validate U.S. farmers’ position that they are being shut out of the lucrative hemp market that Canadian farmers have cashed in on for over a decade now.

The sales data, collected by the market research firm SPINS, were obtained from natural and conventional food retailers, excluding Whole Foods Market and other establishments not providing sales data – and thus underestimate actual sales by a factor of at least three. According to the SPINS data, hemp grocery sales grew in the sampled stores by 42% over the previous year ending December 27, 2008, or $2.56 million, to a total of $8.64 million. The SPINS data also show that sales of hemp body care products grew by 19%, or $3.00 million, over the previous year to a total of $19.12 million. Finally, according to SPINS, combined hemp food, body care and vitamin product sales grew by 22%, or $6.11 million, over the previous year to a total of $33.51 million.

Due to significant sales excluded from the SPINS data, such as The Body Shop, Whole Foods Market and restaurants, as well as the fact that many unreported leading mass-market brands of suntan lotion and sunscreen products include hemp oil, the HIA estimates the total retail value of North American hemp food, vitamin and body care product sales to be in the range of $100-120 million for 2008.

“Farmers who want to grow hemp to support the steady double-digit growth are mad as ever about being shut out by our backward federal government,” says David Bronner, who makes Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and uses hemp oil in all his top-selling products. “The HIA is confident that the total North American hemp food and body care market over the last year accounted for $100-120 million in retail sales,” adds Bronner, who also chairs the HIA Food and Oil Committee. Full article here.

April 27, 2009 – Texas Republican Ron Paul, along with ten co-sponsors, is once again seeking to allow for the commercial farming of industrial hemp.

House Bill 1866, The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009, would exclude low potency varieties of marijuana from federal prohibition. If approved, this measure will grant state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity.

Several states — including North Dakota, Montana, and Vermont — have enacted regulations to allow for the cultivation of hemp under state law. However, none of these laws can be implemented without federal approval. Passage of HR 1866 would remove existing federal barriers and allow states that wish to regulate commercial hemp production the authority to do so.

Upon introducing the bill in Congress, Rep. Paul said: “It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, from competing in the global industrial hemp market. Indeed, the founders of our nation, some of whom grew hemp, would surely find that federal restrictions on farmers growing a safe and profitable crop on their own land are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of a limited, restrained federal government. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to stand up for American farmers and cosponsor the Industrial Hemp Farming Act.”

According to a 2005 Congressional Resource Service report, the United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop. As a result, U.S. companies that specialize in hempen goods — such as Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Patagonia, Nature’s Path, and Nutiva — have no choice but to import hemp material. These added production costs are then passed on to the consumer who must pay artificially high retail prices for hemp products.