Ag community remembers Sept. 11

Sep 11, 2023

Members of the farming community are remembering what happened in New York

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Members of the U.S. ag community took to social media Monday morning to remember the events and lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

Between 8:46 a.m. and 10:28 a.m. eastern time on that day, 19 men highjacked and crashed four commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and into a field near Shanksville, Penn.

A total of 2,977 people died.

Farmers remember where they were twenty-two years ago when the attacks started.

“Almost exactly like today, not a cloud in the sky,” Brian Case, an Ohio farmer, said on X (Twitter). “I was walking into a meeting when the news came across the radio. The world had definitely changed in the 2 hours I was in that meeting. I had a high school classmate that was a flight attendant on the second plane.”

“I always complained about hearing airplanes interrupting my rural quiet,” one user said. “On 9/11 I was on the tractor & noticed no contrails. Thought how nice it would be to hear the silence. Shut off the tractor, went inside & saw the news. Never complained about plane noise since that day.”

Other members of the ag community are posting messages of remembrance and reflection.

“Never forget. A time to remember those who died, those who served and those who carry on,” Channel Seed said on its X account.

“We’ll always honor the heroes of 9/11,” Fulton Valley Farms from Towanda, Kan., posted on its social media.

In past years, Farms.com connected with U.S. producers who recounted where they were on Sept. 11, 2001.

In 2021, for example, Larry Cogan, a hog, sheep and hay producer from Somerset County, Penn., told Farms.com he was working at his family’s greenhouse business, about three miles from where Flight 93 crashed.

And in 2020, two New York farmers shared their memories of Sept. 11.

John Kriese, a beef producer, was teaching an ag class at a local high school. And Eric Ooms was in Washington, D.C., working on policies about regional dairy pricing.

Video: The Investment Opportunities of Industrial Hemp

The fledgling U.S. hemp industry is decades behind countries like Canada, France and China, but according to impact investor and this week’s podcast guest, Pierre Berard, it could flourish into a $2.2 billion industry by 2030 and create thousands of jobs.

To reach its potential, what the hemp industry needs most right now, Berard said, is capital investment.

Last month, Berard published a report titled “Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity — A Pioneering Venture for Investors and Corporations Driven by Environmental, Social and Financial Concerns” in which he lays out the case for investment.

It’s as if Berard, with this report, is waving a giant flag, trying to attract the eyes of investors, saying, “Look over here. Look at all this opportunity.”

Berard likens the burgeoning American hemp industry to a developing country.

“There is no capital. People don’t want to finance. This is too risky. And I was like, OK, this sounds like something for me,” he said.

As an impact investor who manages funds specializing in agro-processing companies, Berard now has his sights set on the U.S. hemp industry, which he believes has great economic value as well as social and environmental benefits.

He spent many years developing investment in the agriculture infrastructure of developing countries in Latin America and Africa, and said the hemp industry feels similar.

“It is very nascent and it is a very fragmented sector. You have pioneers and trailblazers inventing or reinventing the field after 80 years of prohibition,” he said. “So I feel very familiar with this context.”

On this week’s hemp podcast, Berard talks about the report and the opportunities available to investors in the feed, fiber and food sectors of the hemp industry.

Building an industry around an agricultural commodity takes time, he said. According to the report, “The soybean industry took about 50 years to become firmly established, from the first USDA imports in 1898 to the U.S. being the top worldwide producer in the 1950s.”

Berard has a plan to accelerate the growth of the hemp industry and sees a four-pillar approach to attract investment.

First, he said, the foundation of the industry is the relationship between farmers and processors at the local level.

Second, he said the industry needs what he calls a “federating body” that will represent it, foster markets and innovations, and reduce risk for its members and investors.

The third pillar is “collaboration with corporations that aim to secure or diversify their supply chains with sustainable products and enhance their ESG credentials. This will be key to funding the industry and creating markets,” he said.

The fourth pillar is investment. Lots of it. Over $1.6 billion over seven years. This money will come from government, corporations, individual investors, and philanthropic donors.

The 75-page report goes into detail about the hemp industry, its environmental and social impact, and the opportunities available to investors.

Read the report here: Seeing the U.S. Industrial Hemp Opportunity

Also on this episode, we check in with hemp and bison farmer Herb Grove from Brush Mountain Bison in Centre County, PA, where he grew 50 acres of hemp grain. We’ll hear about harvest and dry down and crushing the seed for oil and cake.