Hemp, hemp hemp

[tvguy]

So this was the year of Hemp.  Suddenly it felt like half the agricultural grows were no longer hemp.  I know nothing about hemp, except it's not exactly Marijuana.  In the late summer, the smell of the stuff wafting over the west Medford area was incredibly strong.  Sad that it didn't have some loveliness to it. Then watching as fields went on standing and seemingly rotting. Now, I know nothing about growing hemp, so when I see the fields of hemp just standing there with obvious frostbitten crops in them, I wonder if that's part of the process. Some fields never seemed to get harvested. "Oregon went from 11,000 acres planted in hemp in 2018 to more than 60,000 acres in 2019." Jackson County was the largest producer of any county in the state at 8,500 acres." https://mailtribune.com/news/top-stories...truck-gold Then, the article goes on about growers' nightmares trying to grow and harvest successfully. Seemingly people who don't always know what the heck they are doing, with possibly 60% of growers failing and going bust from this years grow.  The market is glutted, the USDA wants to change the testing method for the percentage of THC, investors seriously underestimated the amount of capital involved in keeping their grows going another year not to mention how it unsettled the existing field labor market.   

Well, I guess the Hemp growing market will shake itself out, but I wonder what it means in the long term for Southern Oregon?  I've found S O to be frustrating in terms of employment opportunities.  I've always wanted an industry that allowed people of entry-level skills to be able to join and grow from the ground up, but we don't seem to really have that here. I know lots of people who ditched their low-level jobs to join in the hemp industry as harvesters or in the Marijuana industry as budtenders.  Maybe for Southern Oregon, it's just retirement, medical industry and hemp and MJ.  And if the Feds decide to move forward to legalize MJ that could change things too. Although I do think that legalizing it Federally would calm things down at the State levels with smuggling and that sort of assorted crime, but now I'm rambling.

I've found S O to be frustrating in terms of employment opportunities


Before I could get in the IBEW I took whatever jobs I could. I worked at Reeter fruit. I sold Crab on the corner at west main and Ross and my cut was 25 cents a pound. I tried planting trees in white city. I sold pine cones for the seeds to the Government.
But most of all I cut and sold wood.. tons of it. Even managed to buy a 1 1/2 ton old truck. I had to cut wood to get by through part of my apprenticeship.


frustrating in terms of employment opportunities
It's been that way since I moved here in 1979. Even as an electrician I have had to travel to find work a lot. Even as an apprentice back when Reagan's trickle down bullshit ruined the economy.
I guess you have to want to live here or find a way to get a decent paying job. When I started as an apprentice electrician a Journey made 17.65 an hour in 1980. Six years later and four years of school when I finally got enough hours to take the test to be a Journeyman.
By then Journeyman made 15 bucks an hour And my first job I could get locally as a journeyman was residential, A retirement home and I was paid $13.60 an hour because of a special deal to compete with non union workers.
Anyway even in a union wages can suck. I considered going non union but thankfully I didn't. When I quit/retired I was making $29.50 and hour and with my pension I was really making 35.00 an hour.