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US (NM): Hemp industry growing in New Mexico

About a mile down a dusty dirt road, Jill Brown is shucking the bud from a hemp plant in front of a warehouse-sized pile that looks more like tumbleweed than $1.2 million in the making. Her partner, Kathleen Odea, laughs. “Wishful thinking,” she says.

The two businesswomen still have to sell it. But at $20 or more per pound — which is less than half of what it was worth four years ago — their stockpile of hemp is worth far more than any green chile, alfalfa or lettuce crop.

“Nobody makes $20 a pound on tomatoes, corn, alfalfa or any of that. This is a big cash crop,” Brown says. “You can take 10 acres and actually make something out of it for a summer.”

The Santa Fe resident started farming hemp in San Luis, Colo., about five years ago. Brown then bought 240 acres in Estancia shortly before the Legislature passed a measure signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham this year that regulates the production, testing, research, manufacturing and transport of commercial hemp and its derivative products.

Read more at santafenewmexican.com

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