EVO Hemp and 40 Acre Cooperative Team Up To Support Black Farmers

Nutrition company EVO Hemp has partnered with 40 Acre Cooperative, a farming co-op supporting the needs of black and other socially disadvantaged farmers, to bring its network of hemp growers into the EVO brand. Both companies aim to help to lift farmers across the country out of financial instability by teaching them how to grow hemp through organic and sustainable agriculture and through this new partnership, EVO will provide consistent demand and an accessible route to market for their crops.

40 Acre co-founders Angela Dawson and her husband Harold Robinson, launched the co-op on their 40-acre hemp farm in Minnesota – a name and acreage that plays off the post-Civil War reparation policy that promised freed slaves “40 acres and a mule.” The company has expanded over the past three years, and is currently working with 34 black farmers and multiple indigenous communities across the country, with a waiting list of over 300 farmers.

Last year EVO Hemp co founder Ari Sherman was introduced to Dawson. Since then, Minnesota state passed a law banning liquid CBD sales essentially halting 40 Acres operations, said Sherman, as this meant that any hemp processed “beyond the hemp flower,” like oils, extracts and capsules, could not be sold in Minnesota. A few months ago, Sherman reached out to Dawson looking to offer support to help them manage with the new legislation, from there he said the conversation kept flowing and ideas for a partnership began to materialize.

“EVO Hemp has always been looking for farming partners and relationships that bring value beyond just the products that they’re producing,” explained Sherman. “We’ve always had a strong passion for finding partnerships that take on the social realm, highlight the incredible economic benefits that industrial hemp has to offer to a farming community and Angela and her husband Harold really embodied that.”

All of the cooperative’s member farms utilize organic methods and its team also helps farmers tweak their operations to become more sustainable and embrace regenerative practices. 40 Acres gives its member farmers access to a range of agricultural support from farm planning, use of its cold-resistant Wunder x Woman hemp strain, harvesting and growing best practice methods and a direct route to market for their crop. The latter of these benefits is the main purpose of the platform’s partnership with EVO.

For EVO, its original mission stemmed from a desire to help small farms transition away from mono-crops like soy, wheat and corn and begin growing hemp. The company, which prides itself on supporting U.S. agriculture and also has a number of existing partnerships with indigenous hemp farmers, sells a range of both CBD and hemp products in over 3,000 doors nationwide, giving their partner farms stable and consistent demand for their crops.

“These aren’t farmers that were growing massive fields of corn and now they’re growing massive fields of hemp,” said Sherman. “These are small family farms that have pigs and cattle and they also have other other crops and rotate crops and many were already what we would consider regenerative farming.”

In addition to supporting farmers with a steady demand for their hemp, EVO and 40 Acres are aiming to open up the conversation around equity in agriculture. The partner companies have plans to launch a podcast, said Sherman, with the goal of shedding light on social equity programs, incentives, grant programs and overall access to education for black and indigenous farmers.

“The main goal is to provide a platform and a voice for these farmers, not only the farmers Angela is working with, but people within the community,” Sherman said. “That could be politicians, policy makers, businesses – any person working towards leveling the playing fields in agriculture.”