When New York legalized recreational marijuana four years ago, Kate Miller was among the many veteran cultivators interested in getting a foothold in the nascent industry.
For her and other longtime hemp farmers, the pitch included the promise of salvaging losses they endured in that industry after the federal government legalized the production of hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill, triggering an oversaturated market that for many cultivators became unsustainable.
"The state realized that the hemp market had gone sideways," said Miller, who has grown culinary and medicinal herbs at her Weathertop Farm in Otsego County since 2010. "They wanted to do something for all those hemp farmers that had put lots of time and energy and finances into a market that then rapidly failed."
Thankfully, Miller said, she didn't fully invest in hemp. She grew it on about two-and-a-half acres, and when Gov. Kathy Hochul announced hemp farmers would be the first to get their adult-use conditional cultivator licenses in April 2022, Miller was among the first 52 to be granted a license.
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