Harvesting hemp in Chouteau County
Nicholas Bogart is a farmer in Fort Benton that has decided to try a whole new style of farming - a hemp crop. “This is all very new, but when my wife and I moved back to the farm, we already heard a little bit about hemp farming but when the opportunity came we just kinda took it. We haven’t been able to tell if it is going to profit or not, but hopefully it will be worth it.”
Although Bogart may be new to the hemp farming scene, IND Hemp, which is the business that will be buying the crop, hooked them up with an agronomist who has thus far been able to lead them in the proper direction.
Ben Brimlow has been working with hemp since 2019 and says that this is a crop that he could see himself working with for a long time.
Brimlow has been able to see the economic impact that hemp can have on a community but understands that it is a risk to learn a whole new crop: “In many cases it does beat out a crop's pricing that being said it does take a learning curve to grow this crop.”
Bogart is not the first farmer that IND Hemp has taught the ropes of hemp farming
Trey Riddel of IND Hemp said, “Most of the farmers who have contracts with IND never grew hemp before. We have a contract with our farmers where they grow plants and then sell them to us.”
Hemp farming is still a learning process for many farmers but it could be Montana's next big cash crop.
