Meet your local hemp farmers.
Before he started JD Farms, Mark Justh was a managing director for JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Asia. His co-founder, Dan Dolgin, worked in counterterrorism for various agencies in Washington.
Now these two men are partners in the hemp business. JD Farms specializes in top-quality food products—including baby greens salad mix, pasta, and cold-pressed oil—and its becoming a culinary sensation across the country.
Located in Eaton, N.Y., about 30 miles southeast of Syracuse, JD Farms is the first legal hemp farm in New York in more than 80 years. It’s set on 1,500 acres of certified organic land, which Justh purchased in 2008 when he developed an interest in sustainable farming. “There was a tremendous agricultural infrastructure,” Justh says of the potential he saw. “The region had been a major dairy area, but the farms were neglected. Commodity milk prices had challenged the local economy.”
He’d originally planned to grow organic produce; hemp would simply be the cover crop, as protection against weeds. However, “hemp began to look very interesting,” he says. “Then Dan got involved, and we saw the possibility of hemp as a food product.”
Cybersecurity Farming
Dolgin was a veteran of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center, both in D.C., before he got burned out on government jobs. He’d been working on cybersecurity projects in New York when he met Justh. “I grew up as a Jewish kid on Long Island,” Dolgin says. “I like the idea of making an impact in a depressed New York community, and of looking at agriculture in a new way. We began to consider hemp. Because of my regulatory background, I knew how government works—and doesn’t work.”
Justh, meanwhile, saw the financial possibilities. “I’d been approached about growing medical marijuana. But I thought, What can I produce that has a competitive advantage? How do I compete with the Midwest, with Ukraine? I realized it was a question of government regulation. And I have a partner who is very intelligent about regulatory issues.”
Although it’s constantly mistaken for cannabis, and it comes from the same plant, hemp is not the same product. While marijuana is bred to include potent amounts of THC, hemp has only trace amounts—it contains less than 0.3 percent of the hallucinogen. “You could smoke a football field of hemp and you wouldn’t get high, you’d get a headache,” is how Dolgin describes it. Still, when it planted its first seeds, JD Farms had to install an armed guard. (Until they’re planted in the ground, hemp seeds are considered a Schedule I narcotic, according to Dolgin.)
Hemp, the plant, is traditionally known for its use in textiles and ropes. That’s because of its strength: After about three weeks of growth, a hemp stalk will be so sturdy it’s almost impossible to break, because the fibers are so long and strong. But for culinary products, it’s the seeds that are all-important. After they’re pressed to produce oil, the resulting byproduct can be processed into a flour from which products like pasta can be created. JD Farms has also started cultivating young hemp leaves into salad mixes.
A New Old Industry
For those unfamiliar with the status of hemp these days, Dolgin supplies the 30-second download: “In the ’70s it got caught up with marijuana in the anti-drug laws. It stayed that way for several decades, until the tobacco industry hit rock bottom and states like Virginia realized they need a new crop for farmers. In 2014 the passage of the U.S. Farm Bill allowed states to conduct hemp pilot programs. You could grow hemp if you were certified and licensed.” Because of the government work Dolgin had done, he was able to work closely with state senators and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office to pass a series of bills that allowed JD Farms to grow hemp. The industry is currently a $688 million business in the U.S.