IDOA receives over 350 hemp applications
Tremendous interest in less than two days
 

[May 02, 2019] 

LINCOLN 

At 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, April 30th, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) announced it would begin accepting applications for growers and processors of industrial hemp. Almost immediately, a steady flow of applications began coming in to the departments website with over 350 applications being received in the first two days. IDOA staff immediately began reviewing the applications—the first step in the approval process.

“We are extremely pleased with number of applications the Department received in the first two days the applications were made available to the public,” said John Sullivan, Director IDOA. “Pleased, but not necessarily surprised given the incredible amount of interest from potential growers and processors over the last several months.

The IDOA staff worked tirelessly to ensure the rules and regulations were finished in time to plant hemp this spring—I appreciate their hard work.”

“We predicted there would be a lot of interest, but the turnout has been phenomenal,” said Jeff Cox, Bureau Chief of Medicinal Plants at IDOA. “I’m thrilled with how smoothly the application process has gone so far and our staff has been working non-stop to review and approve the applications.”

The chart below reflects the number of applications received and approved in the first 24 hours:
 

TYPE	APPS RECEIVED	ACRES SUBMITTED	LIC/REG ISSUED
GROWER	295	7,093	97
PROCESSOR	74	N/A	29

[Illinois Department of Agriculture]