Over the last five years, industrial hemp began to re-enter mainstream agriculture through the 2014 Farm Bill pilot program legalizing the study of growth, cultivation, and marketing of industrial hemp by state departments of agriculture and higher education institutions for research purposes. The 2018 Farm Bill expanded opportunities for industrial hemp production beyond research creating a national commercial industrial hemp production program that allows states, Indian Tribes, and Territories to submit plans for regulating and monitoring their own industrial hemp production programs. This paper looks at Kansas’ experience during its first growing season under the pilot research program.