Real Estate Expert Eric Andrews has recently sold several homes with 2 – 5 acres of land to people moving to Pittsboro or other areas of Chatham County to grow, farm or cultivate hemp.
Speaker 1: Can you grow hemp in Chatham County?
Speaker 2: You can grow a type of hemp in Chatham County. Yes, you can. It’s now legal in North Carolina. But the situation that the government is concerned about is the level of THC. So, and that has been the difficulty. So…
Speaker 1: So a lot of people don’t know there’s a difference between hemp and cannabis.
Speaker 2: Right. Right. But all of them have different levels of THC. And the problem with growing hemp in North Carolina has been keeping the levels of THC down to the required federal levels. So if you wish to distribute hemp in North Carolina, you have to have Uncle Sam come in and test your level of THC. And if the level of THC is too high, they confiscate your crop. And so you get nothing.
So, and cross-pollenization, just different variances in the weather, there’s so many things that can happen that create this level of THC to be too high. So if you can keep the THC levels down and in just regular, plain old hemp, yes, it’s a legal crop.
And there’s the oil and the fiber. The oil has omega six and omega three acids that are very helpful for a variety of reasons. The oils are used in many different things, butter, moisturizer. Also, big thing right now is CBD oil, which is in the hemp, oil that is not related to THC, but can have a calming effect. There are people that are suffering from bipolar disorder that have found positive results with the CBD oil. And the fiber can be used for rope, clothes, and paper. And there are a lot of people for various reasons that are very pro hemp for that fiber, because it’s not as harmful to the environment, like removing a tree.
So NC state has a Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, and they’ll come out and evaluate your soils in Chatham County to see whether or not it is conducive to growing hemp. There is a Everything Hemp store right now in Asheboro and Greensboro that sells a lot of the hemp products. And there’s a couple other places in Wake Forest, Hillsboro, and Raleigh, too.
But it is a growing industry in North Carolina right now, growing hemp. And you can do it in Chatham County.
