The US Farm Bill with a price tag of $867 billion over the next five years easily passed the Senate. Now, it will head to President Trump’s desk as early as Friday.
The big news in all this is that the legal status of hemp and its extracts are now certain. Also, growers of hemp will now be allowed to buy federally-subsidized crop insurance.
Farms Shift to Hemp
A qz.com article from Monday, Even farmers are shifting from tobacco to hemp and CBD, highlights the incentives for farmers to grow hemp. Unsurprisingly, the “consumer craze” for cannabidiol or CBD is top of the list. We’ve been writing about this sub-sector for months at Pinnacle and believe it will be a driving force for cannabis investments in 2019. QZ explains,
“The consumer craze for cannabidiol, or CBD, has helped drive the demand for hemp. CBD is a chemical compound that occurs naturally in cannabis and appears in everything from muscle rub and sublingual drops to lattes and dog treats.
Brownlow says he’s happy with how his hemp crops have performed—“the plant is a weed, and it likes to grow.” That makes it easier to turn a profit.”
The rise of hemp from a crop standpoint is critical to the economies of many southern states.
Whereas places like Kentucky the decline in Tobacco harvested each year has been precipitous.
For Canadian cannabis stocks, the Farm Bill will act as a catalyst. Investors are going to begin pricing in not only the full legalization of hemp; but, the real potential of federally legal cannabis. The cultural shift and how society views these once banned substances continues to change. Expect to see new hemp-related deals, including those that extract cannabidiol, or CBD, from the hemp to be all over the headlines in coming months. Many of these companies are set to go public and have been waiting months for the Farm Bill approval. Finally, it is now just days away. The catalyst so many CBD and hemp-related deals have arrived.
