From tobaco to hemp, Waller is finding success

Nathalie, Va.–Dr. Brenda Waller was the last of her five siblings to help her father on the farm. They raised corn, peanuts and tobacco, then a dependable cash crop. She doesn’t recall how much money they made but does remember plowing with a mule. It was subsistence income. Few Black farmers in her rural area of Southside Virginia owned land then. As sharecroppers, they had to split their profits with the landowner, even though her father did much of the work. 

Waller  left the area to pursue education and employment as the tobacco economy crashed even though she enjoyed the farm life.  It was not then  fertile ground for Black farmers, much less Black women farmers. She returned  in 1996 to rural Nathalie after her mother died.  Her father had passed in 1991.

Waller then realized her desire “to be on my homeplace.” And in a revolutionary move, that bored through generations of discrimination, she bought the 50 acres where her father farmed.  She’s been adding acres ever since for a total of 180, plus a Bed and Breakfast. 

She commutes to a private practice an hour away in Lynchburg and lives on the farm. with her husband    “I think it is a wonderful way of life.  The land is something secure,” she says,

On this Saturday, Waller offers to drive me around in her Kawasaki Mule utility vehicle to survey a hemp field, which looks neatly trimmed after harvest, with the tough gray hemp stalks scattered flat on the ground. Casually stylish, her red-trimmed leather gloves gripping the wheel, she points out a pretty small pond lined with pine trees, at the foot of the field. Then we drive back across the road to tour Bradley House, a handsome 100-year-old home that she bought as part of a land deal.  She has equipped it with well-appointed bathrooms and a gourmet kitchen as a B&B to attract city-dwellers to the country. 

While the land looks bare now, the projects are bubbling  up in her mind. She is looking at a place for a  treehouse here, and further down a hill, she considers the renovation of a crumbling historic log house.

Hemp  is now the foundation of the farm, just as tobacco once was.  It is sorting out the markets, licenses, regulations and methods of planting that is challenging even for the initiated. Opportunities boom and fade away quickly in this agricultural wild west. Waller has the background, savvy and enough acreage to start with. So she is good to go. 

A lot of tobacco farmers who had hoped for a new money crop, got burned, lost money and gave up growing the crop. 

“I”m a professional. CBD has a lot of medicinal qualities. When the window opened with the (federal) farm bill, in 2018, allowing farmers to grow hemp,  people were promised a lot of profit and it didn’t happen,” Waller says.

Not discouraged by the ups and downs of the market, which can be skewed against small farmers, especially people of color,  Waller is leading a co-op called the Farmers Cooperative to expand  fair and equitable practices  for black and socially disadvantaged farmers nationwide. In the U.S. there are currently 49,000 farms owned by Blacks, compared to 1 million farms in the early 1900s.  “We are stronger in all areas of life when we work together with like minds,” she says. (Read more here.)

For now, the most lucrative market is  for recreational marijuana, which has high levels of THC, the ingredient that causes a person to get high.

Without the appropriate legalization in Virginia, that business is closed to Virginia farmers.  (Currently Virginians can plant marijuana for personal use only. ) 

As Waller explains, marijuana and hemp are different species in the same family. 

Hemp, which does not have the psychoactive features of marijuana, is being raised for a wide range of products, from vodka to rope in Virginia and around the country.  Iindustrial hemp which is approved in Virginia, contains just .3 percent THC. but has CBD, which is sold for  its healing effects for pain, among other assets.  (For more information about the differences, check out the Centers for Disease Control answers to frequent questions about marijuana here.)

On the plot of land where her father raised tobacco, Waller, with the required licenses,  grows hemp for CBD products that range from joint cream to grapefruit facial wash. The list of customers–online and local family and friends–is growing.

She has seen how CBD offers relief for her patients who suffer from neuro- degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s.”The CBD is doing wonderful things for people with pain, and for people with glaucoma. There’s always the risk of overuse.” 

On another 50 acres, she is planting  industrial hemp that will be made into tough textiles or building supplies.  She has a guaranteed contract through Biophil, an exciting new $10 million venture based in Lumberton, North Carolina, which is producing sustainable, hemp-based alternatives to replace petroleum plastics and tree wood. 

Regardless of drought or accidents, the company pays her $500 an acre this year. Biophyl provides the seeds, which come from China, and picks up the harvested product from her farm. She is hoping the profits will go up, in line with the rising retail price of industrial hemp.

 Industrial hemp, which cannot by law have a THC level above .3 percent,  is good environmentally.  With its chemical free, waste free production, Biophyl promises on its website “chemical free, waste free production,” that “will help turn the tide on climate change.”  By using hemp  products  for construction, paper  and building supplies, trees will be saved. The plants, which are organic, are good for the soil, too, points out Waller. Hemp is “a fabulous carbon sequesterer.”

 The roots run deep so irrigation is not needed. Neither are pesticides used.

Even for medical and industrial hemp, growing is carefully regulated. Farmers must get a license and submit to a FBI criminal review to root out anyone convicted of a felony. Before harvest, a trained sampling agent comes on site to test THC levels. If the THC exceeds .3 percent, the so-called “hot” crop must be destroyed. (Recreational marijuana has up to 15 percent THC.)

While acknowledging concerns, Waller dismisses the dangers of marijuana: “Those vape cigarettes are probably more harmful.” She doesn’t want to get into the politics of the issue. 

With her background in tobacco and general farming, Waller works with a team that includes her husband David Graham, cousin Lacy Tune and Stanley Morton, to come up with creative ways to work on the  crop. “We had to cut it with a sickle mower and then rake with a straight rake .. People don’t use sickle mowers any more, but it worked to cut the 12-15 foot tall plants,” Waller explains. “We spent a couple thousand dollars on package deals for used equipment to work on this crop.” 

Hemp has been thriving at Waller’s farm.  Like tobacco, hemp thrives in the hot days and cool nights of southern Virginia. It has a similar growing cycle and requires similar machinery.  Marijuana plants would be the same. If the market for recreational marijuana opens up, Waller will be ready to try it. But for now, she has plenty of work to do. She goes back to the lessons of farming she learned from her father: “You knew if you worked hard, at the end of the day, you would get something for your effort.”