While hemp is a fairly hardy plant, companies that mass-market it for CBD and other products sometimes hasten the growing season in unhealthy ways. The reasons that hemp can be challenging to grow include:

• The growing climate of the cannabis provider may not be conducive for the most popular hemp strains requested by that growers’ client list.
• Common or specialty hemp plants are susceptible to pests such as aphids and mites
• When hemp is bred to be higher in either CBD or THC (depending on the ultimate product), the plants may be even more vulnerable to pests and climate conditions than common strains.

To counter these factors, mass producers may use unsafe growing practices such as growth boosters, which force plants to grow bigger than they normally would. Yet these growth regulators may not be rated as safe for human consumption.

Pesticides and fungicides used to control disease and insect predators are also potentially unhealthy. Many contain carcinogens that can make their way into the final products, including CBD oil. Unfortunately, with marijuana plants, the plant part that the pesticide tends to settle is the very part harvested for use— the flower bud.

Hemp farmers who use organic methods avoid these unsafe practices. They use methods like growing other plants that confuse or repel insects, or spraying with organic pesticides. Too often, the bigger the grower, the less likely they are to use these more labor-intensive methods.

That's why we stay small, stay local, and keep organic.