Up First in the 4 States; Hemp Production

Good Wednesday morning. Thanks for joining me for up first in the four states from KRPS. I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. First, let's take a look at local weather, sunny and hot conditions again today throughout the four states, highs in the mid in upper 90s. Clear skies expected tonight with light winds, lows right around 70. Sunny and dry conditions will remain in the area Thursday, Friday and Saturday, highs remaining in the mid in upper 90s. Kansas Republicans are ending the COVID-19 state of emergency. As Abigail Sinski of the Kansas New Service reports, things like the National Guard Assistance and expanded food stamps will now come to an end. Democratic Governor Laura Kelly had requested an extension, but Republicans chose to abruptly cancel a meeting to consider that and end the pandemic state of emergency. A statement from the Republican Senate President Thai Masterson said it was time for Kansas to quote, return to normal. The governor's chief of staff will Lauren says not having the declaration will jeopardize things like back to school vaccination campaigns and expanded

food stamp benefits for 63,000 Kansas households. We are closing things down and moving towards the end, but you don't just shut everything down on a moment's notice. There is a ramp down period of time. Now Kansas will be one of nine states without pandemic emergency declarations. For the Kansas New Service, I'm Abigail Sensky in Overland Park on Tuesday. Missouri Governor Mike Parsons signed a bill into law limiting the power of local governments. House bill 271 passed by state legislators last month is a reaction from Republican lawmakers to rain in metro, high populated and heavily democratic parts of Missouri over coronavirus closures and local mass requirements. The bill limits the scope of local health departments to force businesses to close in Missouri to only 30 days over a six month span. The closures would then have to be extended every 30 days by a majority vote of the city or city council. HB 271 also prohibits vaccine passports in the state. Parsons saying on a post on Facebook quote, while we encourage all Missourians to get vaccinated

against COVID-19, it is not the government's job to force them on quote. Previously, the governor said that he wouldn't supersede strict or local rules imposed in cities such as Kansas City and St. Louis. Thousands of canzans have snapped up health insurance plans or switched to cheaper or free ones in recent months. Ciliola Opus jumped in of the Kansas New Service explains why and how. In February, the Biden administration reopened the window for buying insurance on the federal exchange. Then Congress passed the American Rescue Plan in March. It offers more help to more people for buying insurance. Twelve thousand canzans have signed up for plans. Most uninsured people qualify for subsidies. Tens of thousands in Kansas can get a plan for free or nearly free. Mid August is the deadline to buy or adjust a plan through healthcare.gov. For the Kansas New Service, I'm Ciliola Opus-Jepsen. The number of COVID-19 cases in Johnathan is creeping up. One year ago today, according to the Dartmouth University, Alice COVID-19 tracking project, the Johnathan area had

the highest COVID-19 case growth rate in the country. At the time testing with scarce and the first vaccine was still six months away, consider this. On Monday of this week, the Joplin Health Department reported more new cases, 21, than it did on June 16th of 2020 with just six. Today, Joplin is second in the state at 45.2 percent of residents who have initiated a vaccine, and second in Missouri in residents who have completed their vaccinations at 39.4. To contrast, Green County has only 36 percent of their residents receiving their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 31.9 percent of Green County residents completing their vaccinations. All Missouri residents over the age of 12 are eligible to receive a free COVID-19 vaccine. Visit covidvaccine.mo.gov for more information. And now on to our feature of the day. This summer marks the third year that canzads have grown hemp for industrial uses. It requires some risk takers, and it has proven risky.

Brian Grimit of the Kansas New Service explores why it has been more difficult than some expected, and how they like a little bit more help from the government. In an industrial building in the airport in Pratt in South Central Kansas, workers break open a 1,200 pound bag of industrial hemp stalks, grains, and flowers, and dump it onto a large conveyor belt. The facility, operated by Shining Star Hemp Company, is one of only 11 licensed hemp processors in the state. Jennifer Holmes works with Shining Star to develop a market product. This is an auger that leads to our hopper, this is where we dump flower biomass. It's taken up, dumped in there, evenly distributed to our shaking table. The shaking table has interchangeable plates, and you can separate different types of material. After explaining as much as she could, she waived down a man driving a forklift. Paul here on the forklift, he's the mastermind behind all of that. He's really put all of this together.

Paul McGeeery is a contractor for Shining Star and developed its processing machinery. He applied what he learned over decades of sifting wheat and corn to develop this machine to sift hemp. He says the complexity of the process is part of what's holding the industry back. It just doesn't have this scale to supply manufacturers who would put the fiber to use. We were walking in there, people walk into those meetings thinking they're having 30, 40,000 pounds on hand is something, but when you walk into the industry and they want five trained cars a day or ten, you know, a train load a week or whatever, would you just are prepared for that and getting them to wait until we're prepared? That's the bottleneck of the whole thing. Hemp has been hyped as something with a wide range of industrial uses, make paper from the stock or biodegradable plastics, food from the seeds, oils from the flowers. But so far, the only market the industry is pushing seems to be for its cannabinoid or CBD-rich

oil. And there's a flood of CBD already on the market. We don't have the best of luck selling full-spectrum oil. That's because CBD is a saturated market. It's just something that we all need to work through and do the right thing moving into grain in the fiber industry. But that will take millions in investments in new equipment. And until that equipment can be designed, built or purchased, companies interested in making products from hemp fibers are out of luck. A company in Newton, Kansas wants to make prosthetic limbs from hemp. It imports its processed hemp from overseas. Holmes wants more government help to offset some of the risk for investing in converting the plant into something useful for industry. A lot of people are scared to start because they don't know if they're going to fail, so they don't ever get started. And then if they have incentives or grants or help or support, we could all work together and I believe we could really make the industry thrive. But it's not yet. The Kansas Department of Agriculture says its hemp growing licenses

dropped from 218 in 2020 to only 81 this year. And last year of the almost 4,000 acres planted, only 761 were harvested for production. And in 8th of that had to be burned by the state because it contained too much of the psychoactive chemical THC. Nathan Hoek is the state supervisor of the industrial hemp program. The past two years have, I guess, really helped individuals get up to speed with vetted industry production standards, those becoming more apparent. But producers are really still determining the best way to grow hemp as a crop and if it's feasible really to include in their rotation. He says growers and processors need to expand beyond CBD products. But with federal and state rules surrounding the crop in constant flux, finding the right investors that can spur that kind of innovation and development will remain challenging. For the Kansas News Service, I'm Brian Grimmit in Pratt.

The Kansas News Service reports on help, the manufacturers that influence it and their connection to public policy. I've posted a link of that story from Brian Grimmit to our Facebook page at 89.9fmkrps. Thanks for joining me for the upfirst in the four states news podcast. I'll talk to you on Thursday.