The first week of October brought lots of rain to the southern half of Wisconsin, but that didn’t stop Phillip Scott, founder and president of the Wisconsin Hemp Farmers & Manufacturers Association (WIHFMA), from eagerly helping one of their association members harvest hemp. “Most crops look pretty successful,” he remarks. “As long as it’s dry next week with good air movement and a little bit of sun, we’ll be happy.”
WIHFMA is a nonprofit focused on hemp education and reform. “We educate the community, farmers, law enforcement—anybody who needs that education to help hemp streamline and move forward,” Scott says. “In the meantime, while educating those people, we learn from speaking with people in the industry about how to guide laws and future amendments that might happen to make sure this is set up for success for everybody, not just a select few.”
Scott became intrigued by hemp with the cusp of the medical marijuana movement on the West Coast. When the 2014 farm bill was signed into law, allowing states to develop hemp pilot programs, he saw the potential for hemp as a useful commodity. He was a United Parcel Service driver at the time, and he used his accrued vacation time to travel to both coasts and network with hemp industry processors, farmers and manufacturers.
“I gained a lot of knowledge and experience,” Scott says. In 2017, when discussion began in Wisconsin about implementing a hemp pilot bill, Scott and others in the state who were excited about the prospects of hemp attended open meetings but wanted to be sure that that everybody would be included in the industry. That goal of inclusion led to the incorporation of WIHFMA in February 2018.
During the short time WIHFMA has been in existence, their board of directors expanded, and they now have five subcommittees dedicated to processing, manufacturing and farming; a cannabis committee to examine future regulations; and a statewide roundtable to call other alliances in the industry to network and advocate for a successful hemp industry. During their first year, Scott says they helped approximately a dozen hemp farmers get their product to market.
Scott also emphasizes how WIHFMA encourages communication among farmers, processors and manufacturers. “One thing I learned from all my travels was that the farmer didn’t talk to the processor, and the processor didn’t talk to the farmer, and those two didn’t talk to the manufacturer. That could hinder growth, so communication is one thing we wanted to encourage.”
One challenge in the hemp industry Scott has found, both in Wisconsin and nationwide, has been getting good genetics that produce quality flower and a good crop yield. He’s also seen challenges with drying and curing to prevent mold and bud rot. But he again cites communication among hemp industry participants as one of the biggest successes.
On the farming end, WIHFMA has attracted both farmers looking for an additional cash crop and growers who already had knowledge and appreciation of the cannabis plant. Scott credits the adaptivity of the Wisconsin farmers to build or modify their current equipment to work with the hemp crop. He notes that some farmers are also looking beyond the “green rush” and considering cannabis for uses other than cannabidiol (CBD) processing, such as fiber and paper.
WIHFMA’s manufacturing members include labs, extractors and testers, as well as insurance companies, e-commerces and banks. “There are many parts to our industry, and we’re playing into all of those parts to give the whole network a chance to be successful. Everyone within our network is from Wisconsin,” Scott concludes.
For more information, visit wihfma.org.
