North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner, Roger Johnson, is presenting paperwork from two prospective North Dakota hemp farmers licensed under the state’s new (and nationally unprecedented) industrial hemp licensure law to the DEA this week. The process is costing these farmers a premium in application fees, including:
* Fingerprinting and criminal background check ($52) * State license fee ($150) * DEA import application fee ($1,147) * DEA manufacturing application fee ($2,293)
ââ?¬â??especially considering that these are, for the most part, annual, non-refundable fees, and few expect the applications to be approved by the DEA, a requirement of the North Dakota licensure law. One of the applicants is North Dakota state legislator and farmer, David Monson, who wants to plant ten acres of hemp on his farm. For his part, he says getting fingerprinted and GPSing his field for the license was “kind of fun,” but fellow farmers are calling the $400 per acre licensing and security costs “kind of spendy.” Related: A weed to watch out for