When state lawmakers passed the Nebraska Hemp Farming Act in 2019, writing into state law the intent to "return Nebraska to the forefront of the hemp industry" and predicting the legislation would bring multi-hundred million dollar investments to the state, Dustin Krajewski took notice.
Raised on a fourth-generation family row crop and cattle farm in Ogallala before moving to the Denver area in adulthood, Krajewski had friends in the hemp industry in neighboring Colorado, where producers dedicated nearly 22,000 acres to growing the crop in 2018.
He watched with intrigue as his home state entered the fold, as lawmakers greenlighted the farming of the federally legal cousin to marijuana while ignoring pleas from a small group of conservative holdouts in the Legislature who warned that the crop would not be "the salvation of our farms."
"I thought, 'Gosh, this is something I could help be on the leading edge of the hemp industry for our farm,'" Krajewski recalled last month.
Read more at Lincoln Journal Star.