By Network Indiana – August 23, 2019

GAS CITY, Ind. (Network Indiana): Hemp became legal to grow in Indiana last month and already many farmers are getting in on the business.

Hemp is the plant that is used to make CBD based products, such as CBD Oil, which also just became legal to sell in Indiana. Hoosier farmers are already coming up on their first hemp harvest and in doing so, need someone to buy their raw product and make it into a useful product.

Heartland Harvest Processing is one of those companies, having opened a $2-million hemp processing facility in Gas City.

“We will probably start harvesting the first week of September through the first or second week of October,” said Heartland founder and chief marketing officer Chirs Moorman on Inside Indiana Business.

Moorman said hemp is a new industry in Indiana and with it comes risk.

“It’s really important for Indiana farmers, in particular, to get with people who have got an agricultural background,” said Moorman. “If somebody comes in and says, ‘I just came out of real estate but now I’m in the hemp business,’ be careful.”

He said he’s seen many farmers bite off more than they can chew in choosing to pursue this line of agriculture. Especially, since the number of critical components to growing and processing hemp in Indiana are scarce.

Harvest is a problem and drying is a thing that Indiana does not have the infrastructure for, unfortunately, like Kentucky, where they’re hanging things in the tobacco-drying barns,” Moorman said. “So we’ve seen a lot of people jumping in with both feet and I’m afraid that we’re going to have some farmers who kind of wished they’d have dipped their toes in a little bit more this year.”