June's 41 Farmer of the Month: Nicole

Hailing from New Jersey, Nicole is another one of our Yankee cousins.

Q: What made you decide to be a hemp farmer?

A: I have never considered doing anything related to agriculture and I think I may have a black thumb, but I found the idea of going into business with my cousins exciting. Our epic Zoom meetings during the first year of the pandemic (what a phrase!) gave me something to look forward to and helping to plan logistics and details took my mind off of the scary world beyond my front door.

Q: What has been the most surprising thing you’ve learned in this process of getting ready to plant our first crop?

A: I've been surprised by how different my cousins are now that we're all adults! I'm one of the younger cousins and it has been a treat to get to know my relatives as peers, as opposed to the cool older cousins who I lived far away from and saw infrequently. It has been so interesting to learn more about people's current lives and to know that I can just pick up my phone and text a cousin I hadn't previously seen or spoken to in almost a decade.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about hemp?

A: I knew very little about hemp before I started working on 41 Farms. Throughout our journey, I've learned about how many uses there are for hemp and hemp-derived products. I currently use several hemp-based skin care products and I feel like my skin has never looked better. I have been taking hemp-derived CBD gummies for the better part of a year and I find them to be a valuable part of my self-care routine.

I'm also learning about how much goes into the work of starting a farm! There are so many considerations that never would have occurred to me before I was working in agriculture.

Q: What type of hemp products are your favorite?

A:  I swear by the Eyes Lips Face (E.L.F) hemp-derived skincare products. Adding a drop of their oil to my night moisturizer has replaced my use of sleeping masks.

Q: Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

A: Being involved in 41 Farms has made me interested in hemp and cannabis-related news. I took a cannabis/business course at Medgar Evers College this past semester and found it to be completely fascinating. The science behind what different terpenes and cannabinoids can be found in different strains of cannabis and how these will change depending on how the cannabis is taken in is utterly absorbing to me. I’ve been especially interested to learn how anti-Mexican sentiment and a burgeoning artificial materials market combined to have cannabis, which has been recognized as medicinal for literal millennia, classified as one of the most dangerous possible drugs in the United States. This designation has limited American institutes of higher learning from studying the medicinal properties of cannabis, delaying greater understanding of what and how different types of cannabis can treat. I hope that future legislation changes this on a federal level so that more American colleges and universities can look into these questions.