Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services launched their online Hemp Cultivation Licensing Portal. This portal allows farmers to fill out the necessary paperwork to receive a license to grow hemp! The portal’s user-friendly interface provides applicants with a checklist of recommended steps to allow for a quick and easy application process.
“It only took people about 20 minutes to apply,” said Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried.
The roll out of this portal has been long anticipated and with the recent approval of Florida’s Hemp Program by the USDA it was made quickly available for Florida’s farmers. The agriculture industry has been struggling a bit. The citrus greening issue has hit our citrus industry so hard; you now find California oranges in Florida grocery stores.
Not to mention this industry was hit extremely hard by the coronavirus. Now farmers are forced to destroy as much as 70 percent of their crop due to a lack of demand.
“Especially with so many in our agriculture community suffering. You know not only through COVID-19, but even beforehand,” said Fried.
The added revenue from the hemp crop could at least keep produce grown in Florida on the shelves.
And the aim for Florida’s hemp program is to make Florida a leader in the hemp industry nationwide. Regulating everything from the seeds in the ground to the CBD on the shelves.
"You're getting what you're anticipating. Making sure there's no THC in there, making sure that there's actually CBD in there, that there's not metals involved or other types of chemicals that would be harmful to an individual,” said Fried.
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