Michigan launches hemp pilot program in time for 2019 growing season

Michigan farmers can plant industrial hemp this year, under a new pilot program announced by Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. “Michigan is uniquely positioned to grow, process and manufacture industrial hemp. We are one of the nation’s most agriculturally diverse states -- growing 300 different commodities on a commercial basis -- making it a natural fit,” Whitmer said in a statement. “This emerging crop not only cultivates new opportunity for our farming community, but it also creates an avenue for new businesses to crop up across the state.” Industrial hemp became legal in Michigan as a result of the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act that voters approved in November 2018, just a month before the federal government legalized hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill.