It looks like pot. It smells like pot. But it’s hemp, marijuana’s legal cousin, and it’s taking over the Bluegrass state.
Across the rolling hills of Kentucky, which just two decades ago was the most tobacco-dependent state in the country, farmers are planting less of the crop after growing health concerns shrunk demand. Instead, they’re increasingly turning to hemp and have more than doubled sowings of the cannabis variety in 2016 to become the No. 2 producer in the U.S., trailing Colorado.
