In addition to the hemp market woes of 2019 to present, hemp operators were often completely new to agriculture.   It is a fact that the theory and practice of farming are very different. Many people have the generalist’s decision-making acumen but lack the ability to effectively translate this into timely field operations.  

Farmers historically have done both, but modern farms often maximize potential by having a manager with solid farm management skills and an assistant with the ability to take steel in the field and get it done.  This is an oversimplification of the complementarity that makes some farms successful. 

In conversations with ag suppliers, equipment vendors, and contract tractor operators doing custom field work for new hemp growers in 2019 and 2020, we routinely heard stories of enterprises that scaled far too quickly to effectively manage.  Much of this was abandoned, or partially abandoned in the wake of falling…