Trent Lawrence had a rude awakening last week. Overnight, mice had gotten into the greenhouse on his farm and eaten several dozen trays of seedlings he was planning to transplant into a field.

 

Lawrence and his wife, Jami, work a 26-acre farm outside of Delavan, about 30 miles south of Peoria, in Tazewell County. For the past several years, they’ve been growing organic peppers, tomatoes and a variety of other specialty crops. But this year, they’re starting a new crop that became legal in Illinois only earlier this year, industrial hemp, and that’s what the mice found especially tasty.

 

At a cost ranging from 25 cents to $1 per seed, rodents in the greenhouse are just one of many risks that Illinois hemp farmers face.

 

“It’s very risky, very risky,” Lawrence said during an interview on his farm.

 

Fortunately for Lawrence, the damage was minimal. He has hundreds more seedlings growing in that same greenhouse, and hundreds more on top of that germinating under lights in an upstairs room of the house that sits on the property.

 

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