Pre-Convention Webinar #5: Hemp Panel Moderated by Gail Byrne-Baber; Panelists Include Beau Whitney, Brittney Neal, Ray Maki & Justin Benton
Gail Bryne Baber has been instrumental in passing hemp legislation in Hawaii for the last 7 years and secured the first license to grow hemp with her farmer husband. She is on the Hawaii Hemp Farmers Association Board of Directors as well as HFUF. Gail is intimately familiar with the unique programmatic and regulatory opportunities and challenges of growing hemp in Hawaii, having navigated the most stringent hemp growing program in the country.
She has also volunteered 8,000 hours of her time to preserve Hawaii coastal and agricultural land and Hawaiian archeological and cultural sites as well as developing a framework for a community agricultural land trust that includes affordable housing for family farmers. Gail has a background in civil engineering with 30 years of project management experience and owns a farm with her husband in Kohala on Hawaii Island.
Beau Whitney is the founder and Chief Economist at Whitney Economics, a global leader in cannabis and hemp business consulting and economic research, and serving as Senior Economist for NCIA. Serving an international clientele, Beau is considered one of the leading cannabis economists in the U.S. and globally. His applications of economic principles to create actionable operational and policy recommendations has been recognized by governments, and throughout the economic, investment, business communities.
Brittney Neal and her husband have two farms on Hawaii Island near Hilo where they have grown taro commercially, sugar cane, and currently raising sheep and goats and a variety of other produce. They have been farming in Hawaii for over 15 years. She and her husband operate an extractor on their hemp farm and have decades worth of extraction experience with cannabis.
Ray Maki, a hemp farmer on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. He’s been farming in Hawaii for 30 years and is the owner and operator of Permaculture Kaua’i Nursery and Farm, a 25-acre organic hemp and permaculture farm that specializes in organic hemp production and processing, non-invasive clumping bamboos, fruit trees and exotic tropical landscapes.
Justin Benton is Founder and CEO of 101 Hemp Corporation based in Los Angeles, California. Justin is on a mission to educate, inspire and heal the world because the power of this miracle plant in its raw form helped bring his son back to him from a severe Autism diagnosis. He’s committed his life’s work to pay the gift forward by educating the masses with his family’s story and how the hemp plant can help billions of people around the world with its seemingly endless uses.