Beauregard’s Ideal Hemp Farm will soon be harvesting inaugural crop
Published 6:00 pm Sunday, June 14, 2020
Ideal Hemp Farm looks forward to harvesting its first industrial hemp crop in October. It’s in the vanguard. Growing industrial hemp did not become legal – in Louisiana – until June 2019.
“We’ve had a lot of folks ask if we’re growing weed,” farm owner Angela Deal said with a chuckle. “We’re not.”
Hemp is cannabis with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels below 0.3. Marijuana is cannabis with THC levels above 0.3. THC is the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s psychological effects. The THC in cannabis gives users the high people associate with marijuana use.
“The state will come out periodically,” Deal said. “If your field tests over 0.3, they burn it, all of it. Only LSU and Southern University can grow medical marijuana.”
Ideal Hemp Farm, a 200-acre farm in Beauregard Parish, will produce hemp flowers and leaves from which the phyto-cannabinoids and other terpenes can be extracted to produce Cypress Hemp brand CBD oil.
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil is the non-intoxicating substance in hemp, which has become popular for treating certain medical symptoms. Terpenes are compounds that provide aroma and flavor in cannabis and other plants.
Hemp can also be used to create building products, grains, rope and textiles. Levis and Patagonia already have hemp-clothing lines.
Ideal Farms will raise its hemp organically, a further challenge, fertilizing with mushroom and organic chicken fertilizer.
“You’d be surprised how hard it is to find organic chicken fertilizer,” Deal said. “But we finally found a Louisiana source. Most poultry farms use steroids.”
Founding Fathers planted hemp
Hemp farming is not new, according to Deal. The stigma didn’t come until later.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp on their plantations. Benjamin Franklin started a paper mill using hemp. During WWII, the mid-western states, Kansas and Nebraska, were encouraged to grow hemp for its use as rope. Hemp was a popular crop until the advent of synthetic fibers and the criminalization of marijuana.
Deal found out about the healing properties associated with the use of hemp’s CBD oil after her mother was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer. She owns and operates a massage business and started selling Cypress Hemp CBD oil.
Deal says CBD oil helped an 82-year-old client get rid of his walker and manage his pain. It has also helped the adult son of one of her massage therapy clients manage seizures.
Kristy Hebert, one of Cypress Hemp’s founders and a bioengineer from Cut Off, Louisiana was run over by a drunk driver in 2012. Her pelvis was shattered. She was in a halo. At Baton Rouge Rehabilitation Hospital she discovered she had sensitivity to opioids. Medical professionals were ready to insert a feeding tube.
“I had to become my own advocate,” she said. “I knew the problem I was having was not because of the broken bones.”
Instead of the morphine pump, Hebert used CBD oil for the pain, inflammation and anxiety.
Why does it work?
Proponents of the healing benefits of CBD oil attribute it to the human’s endocannabinoid system receptors, a communication system between brain and body. When CBD oil links with these receptors, it can create homeostasis or balance in the body’s regulatory system.
On the day the American Press visited Ideal Farms, Angela Deal’s husband, Mike, was watering the 2,200 ten-day-old plants, still in flats. Growing hemp for CBD, and doing it organically, is labor intensive. Cypress Hemp’s founders Blake Bilger and Kristy Hebert will provide consulting from start to finish to ensure products with their label contain the maximum CBD potency and do not contain pesticides, solvents, heavy metals and microbes.
Deal hopes to break even this first time around, while learning how to make Ideal Hemp Farm profitable and having a hand in helping people understand hemp is not the Devil’s Lettuce as some have called it.
“There’s definitely going to be a learning curve as far as choosing the best cultivars for different regions in the state,” Bilger said.
Equipment is being developed specific to harvest hemp, but it’s not there yet.
“Louisiana is an agriculture state, and we have the advantage to lead the nation in hemp production,” Hebert said.
“I want more people to understand this is not only a new agriculture industry, but it is also a newly created access to natural healing products,” Bilger said. “Everyone is super excited about medical marijuana. The difference between medical marijuana and CBD oils is CBD products contain low THC. The therapeutic healing benefits are there – in the cannabinoids and terpenes — but our oils are more affordable than medical marijuana.”
CBD oil is an 18-and-over product. Using it doesn’t require a prescription or doctor’s visit, which usually comes with a fee and requirement for repeat visits. Ideal Hemp Farm is raising hemp used for CBD oil that ranges in price from $35 to $250, depending on number of milligrams.
Louisiana has issued 70 licenses to grow hemp so far. Four went to Southwest Louisiana: Ideal Hemp Farm between DeQuincy and Singer, McNeese State University in Lake Charles, a Leesville farm and a Sulphur Farm.
