RIDGEVILLE, SC (WCSC) -
A Lowcountry man was one of 20 farmers selected to grow hemp this year in South Carolina. The South Carolina Department of Agriculture (SCDA) started the pilot program in 2018 and allowed 20 farmers to grow hemp on 20 acres.
David Bulick, owner of Lowcountry Nursery, said he had an immediate interest in the program.
"A friend of mine, their daughter, has epilepsy and they had hundreds of seizures per day and they said CBD definitely helps," Bulick said. "It’s life-changing. And doing the research on it, it’s endless things we can do on this."
Bulick grows the hemp at his farm in Awendaw and recently got property in Ridgeville where he plans to extract the hemp and make it into CBD products.
"We’ve got about 41,000 plants right now in buckets and it’s a lot of work because we’re shifting up but it’s worth it," he added. Bulick is also working with MUSC and a local pharmacist to perfect the crop and its products.
The Executive Director of the South Carolina Hemp Farmers Association, Lucas Snyder, stopped by Bulick's Ridgeville property on Tuesday. He travels around the state educating and assisting hemp farmers, and said this pilot program has been successful.
"There’s a lot of people who had an idea of what cultivating this type of crop would take but getting that first hand experience has been very crucial," Snyder said.
You can read more about the program: here.
Next year the program will expand to 40 farmers growing hemp on 40 acres and Bulick has already put in his application.
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