As Tobacco Sales Dry Up Kentucky Farmers Look To The States Original Crop Hemp

(LA Times) Kurtis Lee Feb 12 2019 3:00 AM Brian Furnish studied the thick tan stalks dangling from wooden trellises inside his towering pitched-roof barn. After years of practice the eighth-generation Kentucky tobacco farmer knew to check for even the earliest signs of mold on his plants. But this wasnt tobacco. Above Furnish was another plant with a long complicated history in the state. This is about evolving" the 43-year-old said gingerly pinching stalks of hemp that dangled like light fixtures. A steady morning rain pattered on the tin roof and slivers of light shone through the plank siding. The sweet smell of tobacco leaves dried here over generations lingered in the air. With it mingled the pungent odor of the new hemp harvest.