More than 45,000 acres of hemp were planted across the United States last year. Only 550 of those were in Missouri.
Nationwide, that’s the most hemp that’s been planted since 2021, and the lowest Missouri levels ever recorded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
The USDA NASS began collecting hemp data in 2021, three years after the U.S. legalized the crop in the 2018 Farm Bill. The omnibus agriculture bill defined hemp as any cannabis plant with less than 0.3% of delta-9 THC, one of the intoxicating chemicals found in marijuana.
Eleazar Gonzales is an agricultural economist with Lincoln University in Jefferson City. He does industry analysis as part of the university’s hemp program, which works on developing best practices, genetics and markets for hemp production.
Last year, he was optimistic about Missouri hemp production. But multiple factors have caused some hemp farmers to stop their operations.
“Most of the farmers who started with hemp — they lost money,” Gonzales said.
Missouri was one of the country’s top producers of hemp in the early 20th century. But after a de facto ban in the 1930s, the already-declining market was annihilated and supply chains atrophied. Trying to build them back has been a challenge. Today, there are hardly any companies that process hemp in Missouri.
“It is not profitable to go 200 or 300 miles to find a processor,” Gonzales said.
Lincoln’s Hemp Institute has been working on expanding markets. They paid farmers to plant hemp and helped them connect with one of the only hemp processors in the state, Midwest Natural Fiber.
But many farmers wouldn’t grow hemp if they were paid to – literally.
"There is a cost — opportunity cost — to grow something else,” he said. “It is more profitable to grow corn or soybean, other crops. They will not grow hemp."
The program also worked on developing variants that are optimal for Missouri’s climate and soil, the lack of which is another side-effect of the near-century of hemp’s hiatus. Farmers also need variants that don’t run the risk of violating the legal limit of delta-9 THC.
“More than 0.3% concentration, you are going to have to destroy your plantation,” Gonzales said.
Hemp-derived drugs have been a profitable, and controversial, sector of the hemp industry. While cannabis with delta-9 THC is federally illegal, there are other chemicals that produce similar effects. Plus, there is technology to convert some of these chemicals into delta-9. The legal status of both of these types of drugs has been described by some as the “hemp loophole.”
Some Missouri officials have been trying to crack down on these drugs. Last summer, then-Governor Mike Parson announced a sweeping ban – though it was stripped down weeks later. For years, lawmakers have made attempts at efforts that some in the hemp industry say would effectively kill their businesses, such as limiting the sale of hemp-derived products to marijuana dispensaries.
These efforts may have scared some farmers off, Gonzales said.
“It's risky to grow hemp still and without a very clear policy about regulations to grow it, you are not going to take the risk,” he said.
Other states have seen large increases, driving a national boom in hemp production last year. More than 45,000 acres of hemp were planted in 2024, up by 64% from 2023.
“That means somebody is learning something these six years,” Gonzales said.
Overall, 15 states saw an increase in planted hemp, and 12 saw a decrease. Other states don’t have data available, because they had too few producers in either or both years to publish anonymized data.
Missouri also saw a sharp decrease in the amount of hemp that was actually harvested from the field. Only 210 acres were harvested last year, down from 1410 acres in 2023. Gonzales said Lincoln University and its partners lost 300 acres of the hemp planted last year due to frost.
“We are learning from the mistakes, but we are still dealing with hemp policies, with genetics, with markets and substitute products.”
One federal effort to bolster the hemp market was centered at Lincoln. The Climate Smart Hemp program focused on developing markets and varieties of hemp.
But the program’s funding is in jeopardy. The Department of Agriculture announced this month it is suspending the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Initiative.
Some projects will be continued under a new name, but those will only be ones that had “a minimum of 65% of federal funds” going directly to farmers.
Gonzales hasn’t heard whether Lincoln’s program will continue, but he believes meeting the 65% goal is unlikely, and therefore the grant may be discontinued. The project offers farmers $100 per acre of hemp, but even assuming every Missouri hemp farmer was part of the program – which they aren’t – would mean just $230,000 in subsidies in 2023 and 2024.
That’d be just 23% of the $1 million already given by the government and a smaller fraction of the $5 million the university has been promised – far short of the 65% requirement.
