Roxboro hemp famers have high hopes for success

When the shears snip the stalks, there is an unmistakable smell that resembles marijuana, but high hopes are the only high people will get from hemp.

“This doesn’t have any psychotic effects that marijuana does,” said farmer Jay Foushee.

In 2014, North Carolina made it permissible for farmers to grow industrial hemp, which contains less than 1 percent of the drug THC, which is found in higher levels in marijuana.

“People are starting to use hemp oil to make them feel better,” he said.

Foushee gave up tobacco growing nearly a decade ago. Now, raising hemp is a joint effort with Calvin Whitfield, whose brother works in the hemp industry in Colorado and sent them the seedlings.

“Labor has been a community effort. There are people willing to learn about this new crop. There’s excitement in the community,” Whitfield said.

About 100 farmers in North Carolina are currently growing hemp, and interest in the crop is growing.

“We have had a lot of phone calls from farmers, buddies, neighbors that have expressed an interest. They want to see what we’re going to do, so they’re watching,” Foushee said. “What we’ve basically told them is we need one more year to see how this is going to turn out.”

Foushee said he doesn’t believe hemp will supplant tobacco as the state’s major cash crop, but he thinks it can breathe some life into the area’s economy because of the need for people to process the plants.

“It’s more like being a pepper farmer, tomato farmer, where you actually visit and are looking at your fruits every day,” Whitfield said.

Hemp Inc. University is having a symposium on the plant and the hemp process Saturday at Peachtree Hills Country Club in Spring Hope. The event will include a tour of the industrial hemp manufacturing site.