U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss

Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by Zelphyr on Friday August 16, 2019 @08:13PM (#20720915)

Can replacing these crops with hemp, now that it’s legal, help with this problem?

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by acconrad on Friday August 16, 2019 @08:20PM (#20720960)

I haven't studied hemp but there are two primary limitations:

1. Corn saps nitrogen from the soil. Soybeans add nitrogen to the soil. Since both are cash crops you want to rotate them. Since hemp is a weed and not a legume it would still might have to be rotated in with soy. It's simply not a cut and swap operation like a line of code :)

2. The government isn't incentivizing hemp so now every acre you swap with hemp not only isn't discounted, the demand for it is a fraction of that of corn.

That and it isn't legal to grow in any of the farm belt. Just because you can grow in CA or CO doesn't mean you can in KS or TN.

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by thatcat on Friday August 16, 2019 @08:27PM (#20720990)

You can in TN now... Farm belt is changing and many tobacco farms have converted.

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Re:U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5B Corn Loss by lostapathy on Saturday August 17, 2019 @04:47AM (#20722932)

Actually Kansas licenses industrial hemp starting this year.

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