One of the fastest-growing plants and one of the first to be spun into usable fiber 50,000 years ago, hemp was a prominent crop in the United Stated until 1937.
The 2014 Agricultural Act, also known as the 2014 Farm Bill, allows universities and state agriculture departments to cultivate industrial hemp, as long as it is cultivated and used for research. These universities and state departments must register and abide by state laws and regulations for approval to grow hemp.
Many states started pilot programs and filed plans with the USDA to ensure regulatory compliance. As new applications were submitted, routed through an approval workflow process, and approved, it was clear that technology was needed early in the process to avoid future data migration and conversion projects that stem from starting with paper, spreadsheet, or fillable PDF solutions. Licensing processes ultimately need to be supported by a relational database for license records management with the ability to provide the accounting and required reporting functions.
Our new Licensing and Permitting System can be used not only by State Agriculture departments for managing regulated activities but also by municipalities and local governments for Building and Construction Permitting for commercial and residential development to ensure safety and code compliance.
The new system embraces all steps from the time an application is submitted for review and approval, to the collection of funds and fees, through the completed approval and license issuance.
We were recently awarded a three-year contract with the Office of Indiana State Chemist (OISC) located at Purdue University to provide our complete end-to-end licensing system for industrial hemp. We were selected through a competitive RFP process as the most economical solution for the agency. OISC will use our licensing and permitting system to transition from fillable PDFs to complete online data capture and license issuance. The dynamic rules engine, integration with GIS, and ability to capture, store, and analyze discrete data sets support State and Federal regulatory reporting requirements.
