Acquiescing to a Senate insistence that hemp farmers be allowed to join the cooperatives, representatives voted 33-31 for House Bill 1398, sending it to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk for approval and, ultimately, a showdown with federal banking regulators.
The move was the ultimate compromise for legislators who wanted to keep the cooperatives limited to marijuana businesses.
But industrial hemp farmers had voiced problems about accessing banking services, specifically with co-mingling loans on crops such as wheat and corn with hemp fields.
“Two farmers with lines of credit were threatened, one told outright that if he grew hemp, the bank would terminate his line of credit,” said Samantha Walsh of the Rocky Mountain Hemp Association.
Banking lobbies that agreed to remain neutral on the House Bill 1398 have flipped to opposing it should the amendment including hemp farmers remain.
It is unclear whether Hickenlooper will sign the bill with the politically powerful bankers lobbies opposed to it, or with the hemp provision included.
