It’s not cannabis, but it just might be Stanislaus County’s newest big cash crop?

The leafy plants look like marijuana. But actually they’re grown for making consumer products.

Stanislaus County is taking a step toward allowing regulated industrial hemp production on farm land with a one-year pilot project. Staff members were directed last week to quickly develop a limited trial so some farmers gain experience in cultivation techniques.

The county wants to learn about odors, testing and other possible concerns.

It could lead to large-scale outdoor hemp cultivation under orderly land use restrictions in Stanislaus County. More than 50 potential growers have made inquiries with the county agricultural commissioner about planting the crop.

Hemp has been grown historically for products used in clothing, rope and cosmetics. But the crop lately is grown for an oil extract called cannabidiol, which is touted as a treatment for seizures and is also used in lotions, ointments and food supplements.

In a time of marijuana legalization, the 2018 Farm Bill took the lid off a budding hemp industry by removing its classification as a federal controlled substance. Under state law, the farm commodity closely related to cannabis can have no more than a .3 percent level of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

If the THC level is exceeded, the crop is considered marijuana and authorities may get involved.

Stanislaus leaders are not following 26 other California counties that have placed a moratorium on industrial hemp cultivation until certain issues are sorted out in state and federal regulations. Those counties are variously concerned about an absence of testing labs for hemp, threats to agriculture, pressures on law enforcement and pest control.

According to a county staff report, there’s a lack of pesticides labeled for use on industrial hemp fields.

Ryan Miller, who works with farmers, was among speakers who opposed a local moratorium at last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “This is an opportunity,” Miller said. “If you don’t get in on it immediately it is going to pass you by.”

The county is working on details of the trial program including how much planting to allow. California Hemp Corporation of Oakdale has entered a research agreement with UC Davis to experiment with cultivation in the San Joaquin Valley.

Industrial hemp is grown from special seeds to keep the THC below the .3 percent threshold but the mature plants can exceed the limit, county Agricultural Commissioner Milton O’Haire said. That could be one of the values of experimental grows during the one-year pilot.

In the next few years, county officials expect to see some attempts to illegally grow cannabis outdoors disguised as industrial hemp. Only indoor cultivation of cannabis at permitted sites is allowed under the county’s legal cannabis ordinance adopted after marijuana legalization in California in 2016. The county outlaws outdoor cultivation of commercial cannabis — that is, the stuff that makes people high.

Industrial hemp could be added to a county landscape that includes a wide variety of orchard and field crops, as well as permitted cannabis greenhouses and more than 1,000 illegal marijuana grows that authorities have promised to bust.

Sheriff Jeff Dirkse said last week he favored small-scale cultivation of industrial hemp the first year as an educational experience for law enforcement. Dirkse said initial enforcement of an illegal hemp grow, triggered by plants testing above the THC cap, would likely be an abatement order to destroy the crop, followed by criminal citations if there is no compliance.

County Supervisor Jim DeMartini opposed the pilot project and said the county should wait until federal and state rules are clarified.

“There is no reason to rush into this,” DeMartini said.

This story was originally published May 28, 2019 at 4:39 PM.