1996

In 1996, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation passed a resolution supporting research on industrial hemp farming.

Roger Gipple, a farmer and conservationist devoted to preserving Iowa wilderness, started the 1996 effort when he went unannounced to the Polk County Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting and came away with a pro-hemp resolution.

Around the same time, Bill Horan, a farmer and Republican Party fundraiser, got a resolution passed by the Calhoun County Farm Bureau Federation.

It was Tom Towers, a Bondurant farmer, who introduced the resolution that was adopted at the 1996 Iowa Farm Bureau Federation state convention.

Speaking with the Des Moines Register ("Iowa group studying industrial hemp as crop"), Horan listed the reasons that the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation chose to support hemp. He said the American Farm Bureau Federation had approved a similar resolution at its annual meeting the January before. He explained that, although the United States used to grow a lot of hemp for industrial use, other countries, most notably Germany, were now far ahead of the United States because they had already returned to growing hemp. He said industrial hemp was worth looking into as a possible way to diversify agriculture and add another cash crop to Iowa's "Big Two" crops of corn and soybeans. He noted that the Declaration of Independence was written on paper made from hemp. He said paper made from hemp can last 1,500 years, while paper from wood pulp lasts just 25 years. He said Henry Ford made a car body out of soybeans and hemp.

"We want Iowa State University to get started doing the research," Horan told the Des Moines Register. "In 1937, when hemp was outlawed, all the seedstock and germplasm was destroyed … We need to catch up … We may be on to a legitimate third crop here."

The same article quoted Gipple who added that industrial hemp could be grown without pesticides, unlike cotton, and is better for the environment. And, he said, rural communities could process the hemp into industrial products and create jobs in Iowa's small towns.

"As environmentalists, we've prohibited farmers from doing so many things," Gipple told the Des Moines Register. "Here's something they can do. We can give them hope instead of fear … This could be the basis of a whole new value-added industry in rural communities."

2004

The 1996 resolution has expired, but there are efforts currently underway to get the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation to recommit to the cause. In 2004, Mark Buskohl, a livestock and grain farmer and chair of the Grundy County Republican Party, kicked off a new round of support for industrial hemp within the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation when he got the Grundy County Farm Bureau to pass the following resolution:

"The Grundy County Farm Bureau supports revisions to state and federal law for the purpose of fostering the development of industrial hemp production by American farmers and manufacturers.

The Grundy County Farm Bureau urges the U.S. Congress to statutorily distinguish industrial hemp, which contains only trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), from its high-THC cousin marijuana.

The Grundy County Farm Bureau also urges the U.S. Congress to give the Department of Agriculture, rather than the Drug Enforcement Administration, regulatory authority over industrial hemp farming."