You could be forgiven if your first thought when you hear “AppalachiCanna Fest” is hemp and CBD. But event organizer Max Hammond wants to make it clear that the event, scheduled for February 7 at the convention center in Morehead, is about more than just hemp. Attendees of the fest can learn about sustainable animal husbandry, growing mushrooms, raising bees for honey, and other organic farming techniques, including those used for growing hemp.
“We’re world renowned for being great farmers here in eastern Kentucky,” Hammond said. “Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds would come to these tobacco warehouses in eastern Kentucky and buy what they thought was the world’s very best burley tobacco. They could pick up a leaf of it and could tell you if it was grown east of Winchester, Kentucky, and it brought a premium (price).”
While Hammond is focusing on hemp to help small farmers – with his tractor powered organic weeding tool, the Hemp Hawk, and CBD oils marketed under the AppalachiCanna brand – he says that Kentucky products other than tobacco could, and should, demand premium prices because of the quality of the state’s produce.
It’s income that is sorely needed.
“In the heyday of tobacco, here in eastern Kentucky, there would be over 10 million pounds of tobacco that would come through this warehouse,” Hammond said of the Eastern Kentucky Tobacco Warehouse, in Morehead, where he currently has hemp hanging, drying, and processed for shipment. “That was a big deal for our local economy. (But) it’s fairly empty now. At one time, Elliott County alone brought in over 2 million pounds of tobacco. Our economies were based on that. So what if we grew a much more valuable crop? Such as this hemp, and used it to replace tobacco?”
While his personal focus is on hemp, Hammond said the same philosophy could apply to those interested in producing honey, raising goats, or growing gourmet mushrooms.
Content and information on all of those products, and more, will be available at AppalachiCanna Fest, along with locally made products like AppalachiCanna’s Kentucky Stag CBD oil and beer from Sawstone Brewery.
That, Hammond continued, was one of the other prongs of an Appalachian Renaissance. For too long, he said, we’ve let others take our raw materials and add value to them elsewhere, be that lumber, coal or agricultural products. By adding value here in the region, as Hammond does when he processes his crops and others into CBD made right here in Appalachian Kentucky, money stays in and cycles through the region, and more outside money comes in from outside for the premium products produced.
He nods to Sawstone Brewery’s Derek Caskey as another example of adding value in the region. Caskey buys local products to brew his beers as much as possible; this includes local honey for the production of a honey mead and in the future will include locally grown hemp in a hemp brew.
Lest you think it’s only agriculture, Hammond also recognizes the importance of our intellectual exports. Bluegrass, folk and country music are integral to Kentucky and Appalachia, and the event will also feature music from the New Beckham County Ramblers, among others. It’s all part, Hammond explained, of celebrating what we have, redefining stereotypes of Appalachia, and lifting the entire community.
“We don’t have to wait on any big box corporation to come in and save us,” he said. “We can pull on our own boots, and jump out there, and get a lot done amongst ourselves. We have to lift each other up, and that’s what we’re doing with AppalachiCanna Fest.”
More information about the Fest is available online at www.facebook.com/mountainhempfarms. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com. The event is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 7.
Contact the writer at jwells@journal-times.com.