Liam Moriarty: Hi, Jess, welcome back … So tell me; What exactly are these scientists doing?
Jes Burns: Well, these researchers from the state of Oregon are taking a hemp byproduct (they call it “spent hemp biomass”) and are seeing if it’s appropriate to use it as animal feed. This by-product is left after processing the hemp to make CBD oil. You have to think of it as the grain puree left over after making beer or liqueur, except that yours is just a bunch of leaves and stems from the hemp plant. One of the researchers involved, Serkan Ate s, told me what these hemp processors face.
Ates: Currently, all processed hemp (spent hemp biomass), no one knows what to do with this material.
JB: So if you could sell it as animal feed, you could make money with something that would have been just waste.
LM: That’s interesting. So how do scientists know if these things are good for eating animals?
JB: So far they have done feeding tests with sheep and dairy cows. And what they do in these trials is replace this spent hemp with alfalfa in their feed, in different amounts and for different amounts of time. And while they do that, they keep track of how much the animals eat, how much they weigh, you know, how much weight they’re gaining, and a lot of other health metrics. And then they also check if cannabinoids, like THC, can be detected in the animal’s systems during and after eating hemp, supplemented feed.
LM: Okay, and what have they found?
JB: Well, nutritionally hemp is as good or better than alfalfa. Preliminary data from sheep is that they initially do not like it. Like, sheep don’t eat as much when you add hemp and think it could possibly be because of the smell or taste. But then, after about four weeks, he seems to like these sheep a lot and in fact they end up eating more feed every day and gaining a little more weight. Cows ate less hemp feed, but then produced more milk, but this milk also had a lower energy content. Therefore, they are a kind of mixed initial results when it comes to dairy. But Ates told me that hemp should not be better than alfalfa. It just has to work the same way for it to be a suitable substitute, right? And at least for sheep, it looks like it would be a good choice.
LM: Why are you focusing so much on finding new markets for hemp right now?
JB: Well, we saw what happened first hand in southern Oregon in 2018. The United States completely legalized hemp production. And then there was this great rush to make money in Oregon. That first year, more than 60,000 acres were licensed with the state. And many of those acres were in the Rogue Valley and Jackson and Josephine counties. But then, the market was flooded with product almost immediately. This year, the total number of acres authorized with the state, by comparison, is 7,000 acres. Thus, between 60,000 and 7,000 acres. So it’s a huge drop. The idea is that opening up an animal feed market could help bring some stability to the industry.
LM: So when does this hemp feed come on the market? When will farmers be able to start using these things?
JB: Yeah, not very soon. We are still a long way off and the main problem is that it is technically illegal to feed it to animals for human consumption. The problem is the cannabinoids I’ve talked about before? The Food and Drug Administration is concerned that THC will pass from animals to humans and the FDA has not set acceptable limits for THC consumption. Therefore, the researchers detected cannabinoids in lambs and milk. So until the FDA provides guidance or hemp breeders can figure out how to completely extract THC from hemp plants, the hemp animal feed market, at least in the United States, will remain closed.
LM: Well, thank you Jess. Appreciate it.
JB: Thank you, Liam.
LM: I’ve been talking to Jes Burns, an OPB science journalist. I’m Liam Moriarty
