A personal connection prompted a Kentucky-based hemp operation to expand its business into Pulaski County.
Tami Maria O’Dell grew up in Pulaski County. She and husband Robert Huttick happened to be in town, renovating her parents’ home, in March when Virginia adopted the legislation allowing industrial hemp to be grown commercially in the state. O’Dell called the timing “fortuitous.”
In July, they set about planting some 190,000 plants on 50 acres of farmland owned by a friend in Draper. It’s a small part of their total acreage — Huttick said they’ve planted approximately 800 acres total, the rest of it in Kentucky — but the couple hopes to grow into an economic engine for Pulaski County.
