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ASHEVILLE -- Hurricane Florence destroyed a North Carolina's hemp farmer's crop before harvest time.
When we talked to Brad Adams he was taking a break from his roofing job. That’s not what he expected to be doing this month.
The first-time farmer’s plan for October was to harvest four acres of hemp he has, for the most part, hand-tended since May.
Each of his 4,800 hemp plants were tended with care, he says. Plants he spent roughly $40,000 to buy.
Adams says he sold his 2008 Ford Explorer and cashed in retirement savings to afford the Cherry-Wine strain clones.
Send Brad Adams a letter of support, check or money order:
Brad Adams, 1401 Avenel Dr., Wilmington, N.C. 28411
Did Florence affect your hemp farm?
But now there isn’t anything to harvest. Adams’ farm, in Kelly, N.C., was destroyed by Hurricane Florence in mid-September. He’s not sure the plants are even salvageable as bio mass.
“It might be salvageable,” says Adams, “but I don’t know if it’s worth the labor to go cut it down.” Before the hurricane he employed three farm hands, he says.
“It looks like a total loss,” he says.
Adams tried to recoup his losses via a GoFundMe campaign, but the fundraising platform shut the page down within two hours of its posting.
No Crop Insurance Available
Insurance companies don’t consider hemp a commodity thanks to federal law, says N.C. Industrial Hemp Association executive director Blake Butler. That means there is no such thing as crop insurance for hemp crops.
“That’s the answer I’ve been given by insurance companies,” says Butler, “No crop insurance whatsoever for hemp crops under a state pilot program.”
Still, Adams says, he’d like to continue hemp farming if he can recoup his losses.
He says his actual loss was closer $50,000, and that doesn’t include his time – the farm is a two-hour round trip from his home, he says.
He doesn’t consider it all wasted time, though, he says, since he learned a lot this year.
“We all went into this knowing the risks,” says Butler.
GoFundMe? Nope.
Hoping to help a farmer out, the owners of The Hemp Farmacy location in Fayetteville, Tiffany and Ray Toler, started a GoFundMe campaign for Adams on Thurs., Oct. 4, 2018.
Within two hours the fundraiser brought in nearly $1,500 of its $10,000 goal with Hempleton, franchiser of The Hemp Farmacy stores, donating $500 itself.
However, while we were on the phone with Adams for this story the page disappeared.
He thought it might be because the The Hemp Farmacy’s Instagram post and the GoFundMe campaign listed the wrong amount as his expenses; he was expecting them to edit the page.
Within a few hours, however, GoFundMe had refunded all of the donations made to help Adams’ farm recover from Hurricane Florence.
“They usually do shutdown campaigns that have anything to do with cannabis,” says Butler of the NCIHA, “But why this one was taken down, I have no idea.”
GoFundMe did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But a spokesperson for Indiegogo did respond when we asked how their crowdfunding platform would have handled the situation.
Despite explaining that, per the 2014 Farm Act and North Carolina law, Adams’ farm is legal, all the Indiegogo spokesperson would say is, “Indiegogo allows campaigns that comply with relevant state and federal laws.”
“Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?” we asked in response.
“Indiegogo allows campaigns that comply with relevant state and federal laws,” the spokesperson repeated again and again, eventually noting that Carolina Cannabis News was to refer to him as “spokesperson” and not by his name.
The N.C. Dept. of Agriculture confirmed that Adams is indeed a licensed hemp farmer with the state’s hemp pilot program.
Farmer’s Assistance Fund?
“We’ve talked about creating a Farmer’s Assistance Fund,” says Butler of the N.C. Industrial Hemp Association.
Next month the organization will hold its annual meeting where he says he will push for the creation of an assistance fund.
Adams isn’t the only hemp farmer hurting following Hurricane Florence.
“Some farmers east of Raleigh lost 30 percent of their crop,” says Butler.
UPDATE!
The good folks at The Hemp Farmacy have found a crowdfunding platform — Fundly — willing to host farmer Brad Adams’ fundraiser.
From Chelsea Wetherell
Brad Adams went all in on his dream of raising Industrial Crops in Kerry, NC. He sold his car and invested $41,000 in clones. Shortly before harvest Hurricane Florence hit NC and Brad lost everything. Help him rebuild!
$10,000 is the goal!
To Donate Help Farmer Brad
