The Bee’s Knees: Ken Meyer on the Buzz About Hemp in South Dakota

Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast

In this week’s hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming speaks with Ken Meyer, beekeeper and hemp processor from South Dakota.

Meyer and his family run a fourth-generation beekeeping business as well as the state’s first industrial hemp processing facility.

As a young man, Meyer enjoyed beekeeping but was encouraged by his elders to get an education instead of going into the family business, which he did, and he had a fruitful career as lawyer.

In 2013, his dad and brother successfully recruited him back into the family business of keeping bees, and today he oversees the beeswax rendering facility as vice president of A.H. Meyer & Sons, the business started by his great-grandfather over 90 years ago.

Honeybees are known for their industriousness, efficiency and community spirit, not to mention the vital ecological services they provide, including the pollination of many of our food crops.

“The number that we often talk about is that every third bite of what we eat,” Meyer said, is made possible because of bees. And beekeepers.

Some of that industriousness and community spirit must have rubbed off on Meyer.

In 2020, he co-founded the South Dakota Industrial Hemp Association, and has since been on a mission to bring full-scale production of industrial hemp to the state.

Since 2020, he and his SDIHA colleagues have conducted nearly a hundred educational meeting for farmers to show them the benefits of including fiber hemp in their corn and soy rotations.

Simultaneous to his educational efforts, Meyer has led the way in bringing processing capacity to the Mount Rushmore State.

In 2023, he and his crew opened Complete Hemp Processing at a 25,000- square-foot facility, which includes a decortication system and mechanical drying area.

His outreach efforts to farmers have paid off.

“Last year, we contracted for 1,600 acres,” he said. “This year, we’re right at 2,000 acres.”

The increase is twofold: more farmers have signed up to grow, and some of his existing farmers have increased their acreage of hemp.

“It’s definitely a mix of both. So for example, one or two farmers that did 300 acres last year, this year are doing 500 each,” he said.

Corn prices are also having a positive effect on hemp acres.

“Last year when we signed up hemp farmers, we paid them $300 a ton for their (hemp) stalks. They were getting the same money they were getting for corn when corn was at $7 a bushel,” Meyer said.

But now corn is in the $4 a bushel range, and South Dakota farmers “have that extra margin in there where hemp is better than corn, because we haven’t brought our prices down as corn prices have dropped,” Meyer said.

The processing facility is in Winfred, about 60 miles northwest of Sioux City. Meyer said most of the hemp production in South Dakota takes place in the eastern half, as the western part of the state is mostly ranchland.

He said the corn and soy growers he’s working with generally already have the equipment they need to plant and harvest and bale the fiber crop.

“The farmers bring the bales to us, per our contract, at roughly the rate of a third of their harvest at harvest time. And then a few months out into the second quarter, they bring a second third,” he said. “And then as we’re coming into the spring, they bring the last third of their bales,” Meyer said.

The hemp is processed into two main lines: bast fiber and hurd.

Meyer said the majority of the processed hemp hurd goes into the hemp animal bedding market, while some goes into the hemp-lime, or hempcrete, building industry.

According to USDA’s national hemp report, South Dakota led the nation in harvested acres of industrial hemp in 2022 with 2,550 acres, in no small part thanks to Ken Meyer and his crew.

As hemp becomes more common in the state, the marijuana stigma has lessened, Meyer said.

“The first year when we were educating people, we would hear people ask questions or make jokes about industrial hemp being marijuana,” he said,” and who was going to come and steal the crop and those kind of things.”

But none of those things ever happen, Meyer said, and now just a few years later, no one is making those jokes.

“So after some education, attitude is changed quite a bit,” Meyer said.

Learn more about Complete Hemp Processing

https://www.completehempprocessing.com/

Learn more about A.H. Meyer & Sons

https://www.meyerhoneyfarms.com/

Thanks to our sponsors!

IND HEMP

https://indhemp.com/

King’s Agriseeds

https://kingsagriseeds.com/

The Pennsylvania Industrial Hemp Council

https://www.pahic.org/

Forever Green and the KP4 Hemp Cutter

https://www.hempcutter.com/

Topics discussed in this interview:

• Industrial Hemp Processing in South Dakota
  • Complete Hemp Processing Center
    • Location and footprint
    • Drying process for bales
  • Contracting with farmers in South Dakota
    • Increase in industrial acreage from previous year
    • Reasons for hemp vs corn
  • Challenges and education for new hemp growers
  • Regulations for hemp growers in South Dakota
• Ken Meyer's family business
  • Beekeeping history
    • Origin (Switzerland)
    • Migratory beekeeping
    • Facilities for beekeeping services (wax rendering, honey packing)
  • Impact of mites on beekeeping
  • Number of hives currently managed by Ken Meyer
  • Bee species used (European honeybee)
• Intersection of bees and hemp
  • Potential of hemp protein for bees
    • Nutritional benefits for bees
    • Addressing seasonal pollen shortage
    • Stimulating bee growth before almond pollination