‘The sky is the limit’ – Shaw Local

Growing hemp, a plant that was illegal in the US for more than 70 years, is now akin to the Wild West, two northern Illinois farmers said.

After the 2018 federal bill legalized hemp, farmers across the state and country rushed to plant it. Growers were getting several hundred dollars per pound of biomass to produce cannabidiol oil, said Stacy McCaskill of Woodstock.

She and her wife run Hempstock Pharm on West South Street Road and started growing hemp in 2019.

With too many farmers planting hemp early on, “the market crashed … and crashed badly,” McCaskill said. “Overnight, it became useless.”

There aren’t enough processors for producers and there aren’t enough buyers for crude CBD oil, he said.

A jar of pure raw CBD oil, grown at Stacy McCaskill’s Hempstock Pharm, is shown here at the McHenry County Fair on Aug. 6, 2022. The oil is added to many CBD-infused products that sell McCaskill. (Janelle Walker — jwalker@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media)

Nor are there many processors who turn hemp fiber into some of its uses: textiles, biodegradable plastic, rope or paper, said Kirkland’s Phil Montgomery.

He runs AM and PM Hemp Farm with his wife, Amanda Montgomery.

Ever the researcher, Montgomery said he got into hemp and CBD “for the health benefits” and decided to plant a few acres of hemp on his DeKalb County corn and soybean farm.

How many farmers have tried hemp?

According to a February 2022 USDA report, there were 255 acres of hemp planted in Illinois in 2021. Of this, 210 hectares were harvested.

Nationwide, 54,152 acres were planted in 2021, with 33,480 acres harvested, according to the USDA.

Some have been more successful than others.

Phil Montgomery of Kirkland is one of the farmers in northern Illinois who planted hemp after its legalization in 2018. Seen here at the McHenry County Fair on Aug. 6, 2022, Montgomery has quit his day job outside of the farm to run your hemp AM and PM. Farm, making CBD infused products. (Janelle Walker — jwalker@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media)

Since the Montgomerys planted their first crop on 20 acres, Phil Montgomery has quit his day job to run his hemp business.

He hopes Amanda can quit her job soon, too, Montgomery said.

McCaskill spends his days promoting his line of CBD-infused products at county fairs, farmers markets and community festivals. On Saturdays, the Hempstock Pharm store is open at 4023 W. South Street Road.

A former executive director of Sauk Valley Community College’s Small Business Development Center, McCaskill began researching how to promote and grow hemp shortly after legalization. She found workshops to learn about the plant and potential markets, becoming an evangelist for CBD and its uses.

Both Montgomery and McCaskill sold products made from hemp grown on their farms during the McHenry County Fair.

A hemp plant in the Hempstock Pharm fields outside of Woodstock on August 6, 2022. Stacy McCaskill and her family started the hemp operation in 2019 and offer CBD products made from the plants that grow there. (Janelle Walker — jwalker@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media)

McCaskill has 13 acres and only one planted with hemp, entirely for CBD oil.

Montgomery has less than three acres of CBD hemp and 17 acres are growing for fiber.

“The sky’s the limit” for what hemp fiber can do and the future markets for it, he said.

“But the infrastructure is not there. That’s the biggest hurdle for the fiber side,” Montgomery said.

“The lack of processing is bottlenecking the market,” said Phillip Alberti. He is researching hemp for the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois.

This bottleneck is evidenced by the difficulty of finding companies to distill hemp biomass into raw CBD oil or process the fiber, he said.

With the glut of CBD on the market, Alberti has seen a shift away from cannabidiol hemp (the plants processed into CBD oil) and toward industrial grain and fiber plants, Alberti said.

“There is more research and education being channeled into this production pathway,” he said.

Fiber plants can be found in ditches across the country.

Stacy McCaskill operates Hempstock Pharm out of Woodstock and sold products made from her harvest at the McHenry County Fair on August 6, 2022. She has become an evangelist for the hemp plant and CBD-infused products since he started cultivating it in 2019. (Janelle Walker — jwalker@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media)

During World War II, the federal government allowed the cultivation of hemp to make rope. The plants escaped from their fields and began to grow wild. Often called “weed,” states have spent decades trying to eradicate the plant, even though it was very low in any of the THC that gives users a high.

“These are the things we want to keep and put in our program: 70 years of natural selection and it thrived without human interaction,” Alberti said.

The University of Illinois Extension Service has planted variety trials to determine which plants do well here and has published a database of Midwestern hemp to help farmers decide which varieties to grow.

One potential use for hemp is animal feed, Alberti said.

Producers are waiting for the Food and Drug Administration to rule on whether or not it will be a permitted use, he said.

There are market estimates suggesting that “FDA approval for use as animal feed would increase [hemp’s] the reach by four,” said Alberti.

A jar of pure raw CBD oil, grown at Stacy McCaskill’s Hempstock Pharm, is shown here at the McHenry County Fair on Aug. 6, 2022. The oil looks like honey, is slightly sticky and smells which reminds of its cousin, the marijuana plant. (Janelle Walker — jwalker@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media)

But still, Montgomery said, there is a lot of misinformation about hemp, CBD oil and its relationship to marijuana.

Both he and McCaskill use third-party testing to ensure their CBD-only products, from roll-on lotions to pet treats, contain 0.3% THC or less as mandated by the federal government.

When CBD products first started appearing in stores, there were “a lot of substandard products,” he said. “They would claim to have CBD [in them] and don’t do it” that left a bad impression on consumers.

Due to hemp’s previously illegal status, there was little research into the effectiveness of CBD oils for any ailments. FDA approval and additional research would change that, Montgomery said.

“I think this is such a new thing and there are a lot of questions. The war on drugs distorted perceptions and left it with a lot of stigma,” McCaskill said.

“Fighting the stigma … it’s about healing and a better alternative,” she said.