B4
THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, NOvEmbER 23, 2021
Turning a CBD byproduct into feed for farm animals
By JES BURNS
Oregon Public broadcasting
What happens if you feed
cannabis to sheep?
It’s a question you might
expect from someone using
cannabinoids, rather than
studying it.
But researchers in Oregon
are asking this question —
specifically about hemp — in
an effort to unlock its potential
as a cash crop.
The hemp industry in Ore-
gon currently produces two
main cannabidiol, or CBD,
products: oil and a more spe-
cialized smokable flower.
Growers dealing in the CBD
oil market will often hire pro-
cessors to extract the oil from
the hemp. This process leaves
large amounts of plant mate-
rial behind. And right now,
that biomass has little value.
“Nobody knows what to
do with that material …. So if
you just utilize this as an ani-
mal feed, it’s going to really
be a cheap source of another
feed for the animals,’ said Ser-
kan Ates, who teaches in the
Department of Animal and
Rangeland Sciences at Ore-
gon State University.
The Oregon State scien-
tists working with the school’s
Global Hemp Innovation
Center are exploring whether
this spent-hemp biomass can
be used to feed sheep, dairy
cows and poultry.
“We see that there’s a big
potential so far,” Ates said.
For the past couple of
years, his team has been con-
ducting research trials — sub-
stituting different amounts of
animal feed for hemp in lambs
and cows. They’re testing the
impact of that hemp on ani-
mal growth, health and behav-
ior, as well as whether any
THC lingers in the animals’
systems.
“The material is available.
We have a lot of cattle in Ore-
gon, a lot of dairy farms. Not
so many sheep, but we still
also have sheep, too. So tech-
nically we should be able to
feed this material to those
livestock,” Ates said.
The answers they find
could open up a new market
for an industry that’s gotten
off to a rocky start.
“I don’t know that the
fiber — or the post-extracted
biomass — is the most valu-
able part of the plant,” said
Jacob Crabtree, CEO of Ore-
gon-based Columbia Hemp
Trading Co. “But when you
look at a sustainable market-
place and not wasting any part
of this plant and getting the
most value out of it, you abso-
lutely have to look at those
markets.”
Growing pains
After the United States
fully legalized growing indus-
trial hemp in 2018, Ore-
gon growers and processors
jumped in with both feet. But
Don Ryan/AP Photo
Trevor Eubanks, plant manager for Big Top Farms, readies a field for another hemp crop near Sisters in April 2018.
they quickly found the pool
was cold and far shallower
than expected.
Hemp hasn’t been the agri-
cultural Xanadu many had
thought it would be.
“I think during the 2019
season it felt like a gold rush.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch
such a fast change in agricul-
tural land use again from a
crop that was previously pro-
hibited,” said Gordon Jones,
who works with hemp grow-
ers as part of his position at
Oregon State’s Southern Ore-
gon Research and Extension
Center in Central Point.
Thousands of acres were
converted to hemp produc-
tion statewide. The Rogue
Valley in southern Oregon
had some of the highest con-
centrations of hemp grow-
ing in the county. Early on,
pear orchards were removed,
hay production replaced and
fallow fields were suddenly
rowed in the black plastic
so commonly used to grow
hemp.
In 2019, about 64,000 acres
were licensed with the Ore-
gon Department of Agricul-
ture (although not all of that
was necessarily planted). But
by the end of the season, the
weather turned bad in areas,
ruining much of the crop.
Even so, the markets overall
were flooded with hemp.
“I still talk to growers who,
in their barns, have their 2019
crop either in big totes of
chopped up dry biomass wait-
ing for extraction or they’ve
got barrels or containers of
extracted cannabinoid, CBD,
waiting and looking for mar-
kets,” Jones said. “I talk to
other growers who point to
the compost pile and tell me
that’s where their 2019 crop
went.”
In 2020, licensed acres
in Oregon dropped to about
27,500. This year it’s closer to
7,000.
There’s volatility in the
industry and growers are look-
ing for stabilization so they
can start getting an idea of just
how big hemp could be.
Developing a secondary
market could help provide
that stability.
“I might sell spent hemp
biomass for less than five
cents a pound. But the mar-
ket that it’s going into, the
animal feed market, is a mas-
sive, massive, massive mar-
ket internationally,” said
Crabtree, the hemp company
CEO.
On the surface, spent-
hemp biomass is a high-qual-
ity animal feed, with as much
protein and more fat than
alfalfa, another commonly
used feed.
“When you look at the
chemical composition per-
spective, actually spent-hemp
biomass, in most cases, is bet-
ter than alfalfa,” said Ates.
To test the quality and
effect of hemp feed on sheep,
the Oregon State scientists
substituted hemp for alfalfa
in different quantities and for
different durations. Sheep
either received 10% or 20%
hemp for either four or eight
weeks.
Compared to the control,
preliminary results show the
hemp performed well. After
eight weeks, the sheep that
were fed hemp were mostly
eating more than the group
that was only given alfalfa,
with slight improvements in
body weight. The hemp also
showed varying impacts —
some potentially positive and
some somewhat puzzling —
on health metrics important to
livestock producers.
For the dairy cows, the
researchers fed the cows
15% hemp for four weeks.
The cows ate less during and
immediately after that period.
Despite this, the early data
showed they produced more
milk, but with a slightly lower
fat content.
And at the American
Chemical Society fall 2021
meeting, the researchers
reported that for lambs, “10%
(spent hemp biomass) can be
included in ruminant diets
without causing any detri-
mental effect on performance
with a possible positive effect
on feed intake.”
More analysis will be
needed before the research-
ers can draw a comprehensive
conclusion whether hemp is
actually a more efficient feed.
“But even if it is not more
efficient … the important part
is: can we replace alfalfa or
any type of conventional feed
with spent-hemp biomass?
If we can do that, you will
be able to decrease the feed
cost,” Ates said.
The researchers will test
hemp as a feed for poultry in
early 2022.
That pesky THC
Despite the positive results,
hemp growers and livestock
producers can’t just start using
spent-hemp biomass for ani-
mal feed.
“The matter is the THC
level — if the FDA (Food
and Drug Administration), at
the end of the day, will autho-
rize feeding hemp to the ani-
mals or not. If they do, then
I’m sure that we will be able
to feed this to animals,” Ates
said.
THC is the primary psy-
choactive compound in can-
nabis — the stuff that gets you
high.
The hemp plant is the
same species as marijuana.
But the plants’ uses and
how they’re regulated dif-
fer widely. Legally cultivated
hemp contains less than .3%
THC. According to data from
Columbia Hemp Trading Co.,
there’s four times less than
that in spent-hemp biomass
(.07% total THC).
Still there’s concern from
the FDA that that THC will
pass from the animals to
humans when lamb or milk is
consumed.
“The FDA ... doesn’t have
any guidance or what is called
the ‘tolerable dose intake …
which is the total amount of
whatever compound you can
eat per day without conse-
quences,” said Oregon State’s
Massimo Bionaz, co-investi-
gator on the research.
THC did register in the liv-
ers of the lambs and milk of
the cows that were fed the
hemp — but the amounts
were very small.
“Considering the data
we’ve gotten so far, yes, there
is cannabinoid. Is that signif-
icant for the human? I don’t
think so,” Bionaz said. “How-
ever, it’s the FDA deciding it,
not us.”
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