Hemp Galore

          To drive through the Applegate this late summer is to be deluged with the odor—the stink, some say—of cannabis. For some people the smell evokes those times, in days of yore, when someone wafted a bud under our noses before rolling it into a joint. In this case, though, the marijuana smell doesn't come form the smoking variety but from hemp. The Applegate is awash in hemp.

          To the astonishment of Applegaters, hemp fields sprang up all over the valley this summer (hemp is planted late in the season), stretching on both sides of the river to the hills. The first signs were the ugly strips of black plastic covering the fields. From hiking trails above the valley, they looked like shimmering lakes. Then the seedlings went in. Signs went up: "Hemp. No THC." This was not marijuana. It would not make you high. No use stealing it. Hemp grows fast, like the weed it is called. It grows short, bushy, and sticky (with CBD: cannabinoids). It emits a strong odor.

          Hemp has a variety of uses. It makes a great fabric. I can't wait till enough of it is grown to put hemp clothing on the market. Of course, everyone talks about hemp rope, but the main, maybe only, purpose for the hemp grown in the Applegate is medicinal. There seems to be a good market for CBD oil, made from the stalks, leaves and flowers of hemp, and for hemp oil, made from the seeds. Some Applegate hemp fields have already been shorn to the ground, but carloads of harvesters are working in others, so maybe both products come from Applegate hemp. 

          My visitor from Tennessee last month bemoaned the legalization of marijuana because it took a source of income away from the small-time growers (mom-and-pop, he called them, apparently without noticing the irony) and put it in the hands of Big Industry. I don't particularly think it's a good idea to make one's living through illegal means, either, so we disagreed on that topic, but apparently even the hemp grown in the Applegate is already in the hands of Big Industry, whoever they are. The fields of hemp we see so extravagantly spread throughout the valley are mostly on leased land, which, though probably leased for a pretty penny, are no doubt making a ton of money more for the grower than for the landlord. Some hemp money does, of course, trickle down into the hands of local field workers, baristas, and other merchants. 

          Everyone is talking abut boom and bust. There is no way, the argument goes, that the market can sustain so much product. Oregon's marijuana is a case in point. The large backlog of unsold marijuana has caused the state to put a moratorium on further licenses. People clack their tongues and say the hemp crash is sure to come. There is much head-wagging and tongue-clacking in the Applegate these days. 

          I miss the innocuous and uncontroversial hayfields in the Applegate, but I like seeing our valley kept agricultural, whether with hemp, grapes, or hay. Tomatoes were once the major crop; the air then was redolent of ketchup. Now it smells like cannabis. In some places, if the sun is hot, it might smell like grapes. Sometimes you can still catch the odor of fresh-cut hay. The Applegate is a beautiful place, partly for its mountains and forests and partly for Oregon's wonderful land-use laws, established in 1969, requiring comprehensive land-use plans for every city and county. These laws have helped us keep agricultural lands for agriculture and forested lands for forests, preventing unsightly sprawl  in our beautiful countrysides.