MARION COUNTY, Ky. — Kentucky hemp farmers are harvesting this year’s crop as Congress faces a December deadline that could determine whether hemp-derived THC products remain legal in the U.S. and whether the state’s hemp industry continues operating. In Marion County, hemp grower Jay Grundy said September marked full harvest time for Cornbread Hemp, a Louisville company. Grundy, a fifth-generation farmer and the company’s official grower, said the work is done by hand.
“Everything we do here at Cornbread Hemp is done by hand. We don’t have any mechanized methods of harvest,” Grundy said.
Grundy compared the harvest to tobacco and said the work reflects the kind of farming he wants federal lawmakers to better understand. “This is real hemp farming, these are real guys, we’re on a real farm, producing organic product,” Grundy said. “There’s nothing easy about what we do.”…