The Nation’s First Hemp Seed Bank Will Be in New York
The CBD market thanks you.
With industrial hemp becoming federally legal thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill, research has had to work hard to catch up after decades of prohibition.
A vital part of creating a thorough picture of any crop is research institutions. Industrial hemp, not having been federally legal, had only scattered, minor ones—labs with special exemptions, that kind of thing. This week, New York Senator Chuck Schumer announced $500,000 in federal funding for a major hemp research facility: the country’s first hemp seed bank.
Seed banks are a vital part of modern agriculture. They are, at their core, repositories of as many of the different varieties and strains of plants as can be found—libraries, of sorts. But they’re not mere hoarder stashes. Seed banks are essential resources for research. Without a properly stored and annotated selection of seeds, breeding becomes unpredictable and random. If a farmer or lab wants to create a plant with specific abilities (say, drought resistance, or tolerance of salty soil, or extra-large leaves), seed banks provide the raw material, with data explaining the origins and specifics of each seed.
Industrial hemp is fairly easy to grow, but in large part, it hasn’t been grown in large enough quantities in the United States for farmers to know all that much about it. How does it react to certain pests? Certain pesticides? How does it grow with other crops?
It’s also worth noting that industrial hemp is seen as a savior for many farmers, a wonder-crop. It grows in many different environments—Schumer wants to create an industry in chilly upstate New York, and rocky Appalachian Kentucky is already one of the bigger producers—and yet could command huge prices. CBD, a controversial extract about which little is known but much is claimed, is mostly isolated from industrial hemp. And CBD is a billion-dollar industry, and growing fast.
The seed bank will, at least in Schumer’s hopes, establish New York as a center of industrial hemp research. It’ll be a collaboration between the USDA’s research arm and Cornell University, and located in Geneva, New York.
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].The Nation’s First Hemp Seed Bank Will Be in New York
by Dan Nosowitz, Modern Farmer
August 9, 2019
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreShare With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit
Wonder when will it be in KC..
We are looking for seeds that will grow in AZ hot weather
Hola ….I reside in chiriqui Panama at a high alltitude ..ye I want to diversify ..I am very interested in growing hemp on our farm..can anyone introduce me to a seed supplier or a partner who might want to invest in growing hemp in volcanic soil..
I need advice…crasias
panamajock@icloud.com
There are plenty of other hemp seeds banks that are great. Fortuna Seeds is the best place to get feminized hemp seeds out of them all.
Why does it have to be located in New York, way away from the heart of the farming country…but close to the financial capital…The seed bank should be in the middle of the country where it matters the most, in Madison, WI.