daho farmers are on track to plant almost twice as many hemp acres as they did last year.
Gem State farmers planted 1,273 acres of hemp in 2023, according to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture. That was up from 459 acres in 2022, the first year that Idaho allowed farmers to grow the regulated crop.
As of May 31, the ISDA has approved licenses to grow 2,440 acres of hemp in the state.
Idaho became the last state in the nation to adopt a hemp program, but it appears at least some Gem State growers are starting to figure out the agronomics of growing the crop here.
Most of Idaho’s hemp acres are being grown in southcentral Idaho but hemp is being grown throughout the state.
While a few Idaho growers tried growing hemp for the CBD market in 2022, only one did that in 2023 and no one is growing it for CBD this year.
Of all the hemp acres grown in Idaho in 2022, roughly 44 acres, or around 9.5 percent of all acres, had to be destroyed because they exceeded the legal threshold for THC. All of those acres were planted to CBD hemp varieties. No Idaho hemp acres were destroyed in 2023.
Read more: https://www.aginfo.net/report/59880/Idaho-Ag-Today/Hemp-in-Idaho
