FEATURES

The hemp industry is new in Colorado, and if you’re curious about this crop, you’re not alone. Even crop scientist Melissa Nelson-Baldwin had reservations about it when her husband, Aaron, approached her about growing it on their farm south of Great Bend.

“I told him, ‘I don’t do drugs,’ and I don’t want to raise it,’” Melissa said. “Then he asked me to research how to grow industrial hemp and its uses. I’m a trained crop researcher so I began exploring it; it is very different from marijuana, and I became convinced we needed to start growing it.”

Melissa and Aaron, along with his brother, Richie, own a fourth-generation farm. Like other farms, they grow the standard crops of corn, wheat, soybeans and sorghum, along with raising cattle. South Bend Industrial Hemp is their pioneering venture into a new agricultural crop with great protentional and numerous challenges.

Now, almost three years after they planted their first crop, Melissa works to dispel myths about the hemp industry.