22nd Century Group Inc (XXII)

[ztockings]

Here's the transcript: please tell me if I'm interpreting it wrong...

Unknown speaker

Yes. Thank you very much for taking my call. My question has to do with the competitive situation in your hemp business. You, many times, have pointed out that you have -- you believe you have the only zero or close-to-zero nicotine tobacco.

But are there other companies that actually can safely make hemp that has zero-THC? Or I mean, how -- what is the competitive landscape in that part of your business?

Thomas James -- Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

So, Paul, this is Tom James. I'll answer that question. We, in 2017, two years ago, decided to go after the low- to no-THC plant because at that time, the 2014 Farm Bill did not allow for crop insurance to farmers. So if their crop grew above the legal limit for hemp, they called it growing hot.

They'd have to destroy their entire crop, and so that was a problem. So we came out with a zero-THC as a solution to that. The 2018 Farm Bill cures that problem by allowing crop insurance for farmers to a zero-THC plant is interesting still, as we say in our 10-K, but it's not as positive. There needs to be other agronomic traits of robust cannabinoid profile or higher yield, things of that nature that make agronomic sense.

So there are other people that would like to say, "Oh, they have come out with a zero-THC plant too." And again, that's scientifically interesting. It's two years behind us and they would like to try and get rare cannabinoids, they're again behind us. And so there are people that are going to come out and claim a whole lot of things, but we know what we have and we've publicly stated what we have and we'll continue to say when appropriate the things that we achieved. Not before because, as Henry said, we don't want to give a road map to our competitors as to where we're going.

We will state once we've achieved where we intend to be. So you could take comfort in that.

Unknown speaker

So is it safe to say that there's a fair number of potential competitors and you've got a couple of years of head start. That's your, I would say, competitive advantage. But this is really a race in its early days for -- on the hemp side.

Thomas James -- Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Yes. Don't take the zero-THC as being competitive or a race somewhat now. That's an interesting scientific plant. But again, after the 2018 Farm Bill, it's -- you need other agronomic qualities.

And we think we're substantially ahead from a number of players that are involved, and when we are ready to publicly announce, we'll let people know why we feel that way.