Hemp research center coming to Orangeburg; investment could reach $30 million

BrightMa Farms expects to invest between $25 million to $30 million and create 30 new jobs. It also plans to create internship opportunities for students at South Carolina State University and eventually Claflin University.

“This will be an economic engine for the state of South Carolina,” said Sherman “Sherm” Evans, who leads BrightMa Farms’ strategic partnerships and vision board strategy functions.

The company broke ground on April 29 for a facility on Farnum Road, located off of Columbia Road north of Orangeburg.

The company is currently partnering with S.C. State’s 1890 Research and Extension to make the project a reality.

“Our relationship with BrightMa Farms represents the very best in strategic partnerships,” 1890 Land Grant Programs Vice President and Executive Director Dr. Louis Whitesides said.

“By combining expertise and resources, we are able to push through limitations with the expectation to innovate in an emerging crop industry and grow exponentially viable opportunities for the state’s small minority farmers,” he said.

The 85-acre tract will include multiple units that will revolve around a “state-of-the-art breeding program,” Evans said. He noted it will be the only such operation in the state.

The property will include both indoor and outdoor facilities, laboratories, greenhouses and processing and breeding facilities.

The center will use genetic mapping and sequencing to develop plants for various uses, such as medical products, clothing and gas. BrightMa is partnering with Switzerland-based Puregene.

The company is also utilizing artificial intelligence technology to change certain farming practices and is making automation easier, including monitoring carbon monoxide levels and watering plants with the tap of a phone.

The “innovation center” is expected to be completed and built out within 18 months, but research and development will be underway before then, Evans said.

“We will immediately start the breeding process and putting genetics down there in the next few months,” Evans said. “We will be collecting data from the genomic sequencing and machine learning.”

“Having the opportunity to also work with Puregene AG, a Swiss-based hemp research pioneer, through our partnership with BrightMa Farms, will unlock untapped potential that will undoubtedly propel our research in industrial hemp,” Whitesides said.

Company officials said funding will come from private, government and public equity sources. Officials said they do not want to forecast how much public money may be a part of the project.

Orangeburg County Development Commission Executive Director Gregg Robinson said, “We welcome ag-related projects.”

“Hemp is a crop that has been overlooked and has significant health advantages as well as marketability with different types of products,” he said.

Currently, the company is working with Ford auto company and replacing parts within cars with hemp products and is looking to partner with other end users, noting hemp could end up replacing plastics and paper packaging.

“Hemp is a very diverse crop,” Evans said.

While the company is now only engaging with SCSU’s 1890 Research and Extension, Evans said eventually the company looks to engage all HBCUs.

“Hemp has been demonized for so many years,” Evans said. “We truly have not bred hemp in this country.”

Evans said HBCUs are the focus because, “the Black farmer has been left out of these opportunities for the scalable vertical integration in farming.”

“We want to make sure they are in the forefront and to give them access,” Evans said, noting the project is not just exclusive to HBCU students. He said others will also be involved in the process.

Evans said the 30 new jobs will be “high-tech” in terms of production, milling, research and breeding.

“The pay scale will be diverse,” he said.

BrightMa was founded four years ago by Johns Island farmer Harold Singletary.

But the company had its origins much further back.

In 1865, a 25-year-old slave field hand named Katie Heyward, later known as Bright Ma, was freed from the Balls Buck Hall Plantation in Cordesville, S.C.

Singletary is a fifth-generation descendant of Heyward.

Singletary’s entrepreneurial spirit was passed down from generation to generation through his grandparents Ned and Katie Lee Simmons Roper (Bright Ma’s grandchildren).

They were farmers on James Island during the Jim Crow Era who understood their trade but lacked access to higher learning opportunities.

Bright Ma’s granddaughter Katie left the family land to Singletary to pursue the dream of creating generational wealth for their family.

Dr. Florence Anoruo, an S.C. State plant physiologist, environmental biologist and hemp researcher, said the S.C. State 1890 program’s relationship with BrightMa began because Singletary is one of the farmers who participates in the university’s hemp research program.

S.C. State has a 100-acre research farm in Olar in Bamberg County where it grows different varieties of hemp and tests the hemp for its usefulness in a variety of everyday products.

Anoruo said the partnership with BrightMa Farms will enable the university to test more seedling varieties.

“So many varieties come up each year,” Anoruo said. “This gives us a larger room to test so many varieties. We can’t do breeding in own facility.”

She says the university will serve as a research center on the different varieties of hemp seedlings provided to it by BrightMa in an effort to provide farmers with research-based information on what hemp varieties are best grown in South Carolina.

Anoruo said the hemp plant performs differently based on where it is grown and can be impacted by soil, temperatures and humidity levels.

She said the research will also provide growers with insight and science on how the crop can be grown at the legal THC levels. Students at the university will help do the research and participate in the data presentation to farmers.

She also said a curriculum is currently being developed on hemp education that will cover hemp production, marketing and processing. She said the curriculum could be unveiled in the fall.

BrightMa Farms, which was founded in 2018, has its corporate offices in Charleston and a grow campus in Cordesville.

Farming hemp has been legal in South Carolina for the past four years.

Both hemp and marijuana stem from the same plant species, Cannabis sativa; however, they differ in concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol.

Federal and South Carolina laws define hemp as any part of the plant with a THC concentration that does not exceed 0.3%. Anything above that percentage is considered marijuana and is illegal in the state.