Hemp Pilot Project & Oregon Disaster Counties

Hemp Pilot Project & Oregon Disaster Counties

Hemp Pilot Project & Oregon Disaster Counties. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Industrial hemp contributes $620-million industry here in the U.S. But it still faces many road blocks. Now a group of Oregon politicians have asked the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University to implement an industrial hemp pilot project. Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Representatives Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader, Earl Blumenauer and Suzanne Bonamici sent a letter that said "Without ODA's active participation in the pilot program and the cooperation of OSU, Oregon farmers could lose out on the chance to make Oregon a leader in the hemp industry."

USDA has designated Columbia, Washington and Yamhill and contiguous counties in Oregon as primary natural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by a recent drought. Taylor Murray, Outreach Coordinator with Oregon's Farm Service Agency explains what that means.

MURRAY: The primary thing that it means is that it does make them eligible for many of our disaster related programs and that's a Secretarial or Presidential disaster declaration so the only way that a lot of our programs are actually accessible by agricultural producers.

There is a long list of programs that producers might possible qualify for so a call or visit to your local FSA office would be in order.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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