Kats Defends Hemp At Hot Topics Forum

NEBRASKA CITY – Alton Gottwald hosted a hemp seminar and Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce’s hot topics forum on Wednesday featured Derek Kats of Hemp Consultants.

The real estate development company KORE Holdings had proposed conversion of a former shopping mall into a hemp cultivation and processing facility, but the city council voted against changes to its development plan that would open the way for tax increment financing.

On Wednesday, Street Commissioner Vic Johns said he is concerned about the impact of an acrid odor on the nearby Holiday Inn Express.

Mayor Bryan Bequette and Public Works Commissioner Paul Davis voted against the hemp proposal along with Johns, but did not attend the forums.

 Kats: “When we’re pumping all of the air out of our building to get good air flow, it doesn’t matter what it is. It could be a multitude of different crops. You don’t want to just dust that or loft it across, but then, when it comes to the cannabis, that is something that does have a very distinct smell.  If you’re in the industry you’re akin to it, if you’re not in the industry you typically aren’t.

Johns said he understands that the air scrubbers are not always effective.

Kats said J-Tech Construction will be able to determine how much carbon-filtration is needed for the facility.

Kats said indoor cultivation can eliminate cross pollination of hemp varieties to result in a higher-value product.

Kats: “Our company is a raw commodity, a raw goods creator. What is going to be created with that is really hard for us to say … our company’s goal is not to be the end product provider. We are not there to be the retailer.”

He said a retail component is proposed for the former mall property because the Holiday Inn Express wanted retail there.

Kats: “The CDB side, the cannabinoid growth side is good for our company. It’s good for a lot of local farmers to have a place to go on that, but ultimately it’s not good just widespread as a whole like corn would be, where every single person in the state benefits when corn goes up. We would much rather jump into the industrial side as soon as that’s available.”

 

Kats: “The industrial use hemp, I feel, is the future of this industry. It can be produced on a much larger scale. It’s much more agronomic. It’s much more machine friendly.”

He said the CBD oil will peak like any health craze, but there is demand potential for industrial hemp.

Kats: “What will really pick up in the future is the industrial use hemp, but that can really only be picked up once our supply is high enough of it.”

In the case of industrial hemp, he said,  the demand is for consistent production on 300,000 thousand acres, but the United States is far below that.

Kats: “The goal is to get the production up, so we can create a viable market  for that.”

A post-production facility is proposed to help farmers get their product to a processor.

He said processing equipment at the site could be the largest in a 300-mile radius, so Nebraska City could widen its agricultural footprint.

Kats: “It’s a little difficult to explain because it is industry forecasting, but the cannabinoid growth is small scale. It would be hard to make it mechanized on  a full agronomic production farm, so that market won’t expand in size that quickly. As soon as we start to see corporate contracts come for the industrial use hemp – the fibers and those things – that will spike the industry immediately.”

Gottwald gave visitors to his farm a hands-on view of his hemp plot and described his method for licensing, planting and watering.