While the 2018 Farm Act stipulated that any farmer who applied for a license to grow industrial hemp had to disclose their GPS coordinates, the Attorney General’s office in Michigan was of the view that the information about hemp license holders was exempted from public release, and the resultant hemp law passed by the state reflected this position in order to protect the farmers and their crops. However, some farmers in this fledgling industry are concerned that the failure to disclose their GPS coordinates could be counterproductive for the nascent hemp industry.
One of the potential problems has to do with the process of creating and nurturing business relationships with other industry players. For example, a hemp processor could easily know all the growers in a region by doing a quick online search for the coordinates of the hemp farmers there. The absence of publicly available GPS coordinates means that more work has to be done in order to identify growers and initiate a business relationship with them.
The second issue that Michigan hemp farmers are concerned about are the likely problems that they could face with law enforcement as they attempt to ship industrial hemp within and across state lines. Hemp is identical to marijuana in appearance, and since marijuana is a controlled substance, hemp farmers are likely to have their shipments intercepted on the suspicion that the cargo is marijuana. Having publicly available GPS coordinates of one’s farm can help a farmer to show law enforcement that the produce is sourced from the farm indicated online, thereby resolving the matter sooner. Coordinates can also help law enforcement to crosscheck whether the information about an illegal marijuana grow operation isn’t about a licensed hemp grower before they raid the said location.
The third likely problem that Michigan hemp farmers could face if their GPS coordinates aren’t publicly available is that the crop is at risk of being affected by cross-pollination by other varieties of hemp. For example, the type of hemp grown for CBD extraction differs from the variety grown for fiber or grain.
If GPS coordinates are publicly accessible, one farmer can find out which other growers are in his or her vicinity so that appropriate measures can be taken to safeguard a crop from the effects of cross-pollination. As it is, farmers are in the dark regarding the proximity of other farmers to their grow locations, so cross-pollination may be a real possibility.
However, not all farmers are unhappy about the protection of growers’ identities and locations. Those in support of the hemp law as it is say that because the industry is in its infancy, keeping the GPS coordinates private will safeguard farmers from inconveniences, such as curious onlookers searching out their farms, or even criminals who may wish to steal the plants. These farmers therefore argue that the issue of disclosing GPS coordinates can be revisited in a few years once the novelty of hemp wears off.
It would be enlightening to hear what recommendations industry participants like Earth Science Tech Inc. (OTCQB: ETST) and Canopy Rivers Inc. (TSX.V: RIV) (OTC: CNPOF) would offer on how Michigan hemp growers can overcome the challenges that they predict will result from withholding their GPS coordinates from being publicly available.
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