Arkansas Hemp Industry – Business Plan Templates

Arkansas citizens voted for the legalization of industrial hemp in 2016. The General Assembly approved the program in early 2017 and in 2018, the state Plant Board approved rules that allow Arkansas farmers to grow hemp as part of a program to assess the marketability of the crop. From 2019 to 2021, Arkansas’s Hemp Program operated as a research pilot program permitted under the federal 2014 Farm Bill authority and the Arkansas Industrial Hemp Production Act of 2017.

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture’s Hemp Program was established to license Hemp Growers and Hemp Processor/Handlers for Arkansas residents, as authorized by state and federal laws. Licensed Hemp Growers are permitted to legally produce or grow hemp crops, while Licensed Hemp Processor/Handlers are permitted to accept and possess hemp crops to be processed into “publicly marketable hemp products,” such as seed oil or CBD oil.

The Hemp Program first issued licenses to Growers and Processor/Handlers in 2019, which was the first season of legal hemp production in Arkansas in over eight decades. There were 125 licensed farmers in 42 counties to grow hemp on about 3,500 acres and 31 licensed hemp processors. According to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture, actual planting came in at 1,765 acres while farmers harvested, and sent to market, 588 acres of hemp.

Per the 2018 Farm Bill and associated Interim Final Rule and Final Rule from the USDA, the Department was required to submit a state hemp production plan to the USDA-AMS U.S. Domestic Hemp Production Program for federal approval to continue regulating hemp production in the state of Arkansas before January 1st, 2022. The Department’s Hemp Research Licensing Program already fairly aligned with federal hemp rules/laws, which meant that no drastic changes to the way the Program was already being implemented was necessary for approval by the USDA under a more commercialized hemp program. According to the National Hemp Report, about 20 acres were planted in 2022 compared to 280 acres in 2021.

15 grower and 5 processor/handler licenses were issued under the AR Hemp Program for the 2023 growing season.

Arkansas Hemp Industry Infographics

Hemp CBD Extraction Lab Business Plan Sample, Arkansas

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'70% ready to go' business plan templates

Our hemp/CBD financial models and business plan templates will help you estimate how much it costs to start and operate your own hemp/CBD business, to build all revenue and cost line-items monthly over a flexible seven year period, and then summarize the monthly results into quarters and years for an easy view into the various time periods. We also offer investor pitch deck templates.