Maine hemp farmers fear proposed rule change could cost them their crop

Maine is proposing new hemp farming rules that would change the way it calculates how much THC is allowed in state-licensed plants, effectively reducing the already small amount of psychoactive element allowed in this cash crop to prepare farmers for demanding new federal limitations.

Using the proposed potency formula, 27 percent of the farmers growing hemp in Maine in 2019 would have exceeded the allowable THC limits – which the industry calls “testing hot” – and been required to destroy their crops, according to state horticulturalist Gary Fish, who runs Maine’s hemp program.

That would have sunk Joe Saltalamachia’s state-licensed hemp operation, Top Flower Farms. In 2019, the Unity farm grew 17 acres of cannabis that satisfied the state’s definition of hemp under the existing THC formula, but would have tested hot under the proposed method of calculating THC.

“All the hemp I was selling becomes illegal, and potentially, under these rules, I could go to prison,” he told state and federal regulators Monday at a gathering of hemp farmers Monday in Whitefield. “But a guy down the road sells marijuana dabs or flower and he’s fine.” [Read more at Portland Press Herald]