GenCanna’s 4th Kentucky hemp facility gets boost from tax incentives

Kentucky hemp grower and CBD manufacturer GenCanna Global is building a fourth factory in Kentucky, a $40 million facility the company received hefty public support for.

GenCanna received “several million dollars” in state and local tax incentives to build the factory in Mayfield, in western Kentucky, President Steve Bevan told Hemp Industry Daily.

The plant will be used for storing, drying and extracting cannabinoids from Kentucky-grown hemp and will eventually employ more than 80 people.

Bevan said GenCanna would increase hemp production tenfold in 2019 to about 10,000 acres – all flower varieties in Kentucky.

GenCanna’s rapid expansion comes in anticipation of a new Farm Bill that would remove hemp from the Controlled Substances Act and guarantee interstate commerce legality for derived products, including CBD.

The bill has been approved by Congress and awaits the signature of President Donald Trump, which could happen next week.

“It changes the perception of hemp,” Bevan said of the Farm Bill. “The mainstream doesn’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles praised GenCanna’s expansion and called it a precursor to more hemp business moves in the Bluegrass State.

“Kentucky is proving that hemp is no longer a novelty but a serious crop that connects our past to our future,” Quarles said in a statement to The Lane Report, a Kentucky business publication.