Our Story

IH RISE was not created to start a nonprofit.

It was created because we couldn't find one that existed to solve the problems we were facing.

Long before industrial hemp returned to public conversation, my husband, Jarrett Burke, was building one of the early hemp textile businesses in the United States, importing hemp materials from Romania and China in 1999, years before the market was ready.

My own path began in healthcare as a Registered Nurse, where I became fascinated by public health and the emerging science of epigenetics, the growing understanding that our environments shape health in profound ways. The food we eat, the soil it is grown in, the homes we live in, the materials surrounding us, and the systems we build all influence human health and quality of life.

After discovering the work of Jack Herer's The Emperor Wears No Clothes, I realized industrial hemp was far more than a crop. It was a platform technology with the potential to impact food systems, construction, energy, manufacturing, environmental restoration, and economic development all at once. I believed my unique skill set could help connect the people, partnerships, and resources needed to move that vision forward.

Together, we helped build Kifcure and later set out to create the Northern Illinois Hemp Hub (NIHH), a place where farmers, processors, manufacturers, researchers, and innovators could work together to build a regional bioeconomy.

Along the way, we discovered that the real challenge wasn't growing hemp.

It was building everything around it.

The infrastructure wasn't there.

The capital wasn't there.

The support systems weren't there.

Farmers and pioneering companies were carrying the burden of building entirely new supply chains largely on their own, while confusion between industrial hemp and cannabis created additional barriers to financing, insurance, banking, and investment.

As we worked to attract investment and develop a cooperative model around the NIHH campus, we realized we weren't trying to build a single facility that produced sustainable products.

We had already taken on the financial risk ourselves, purchasing land, advancing infrastructure, and pushing forward long before traditional capital was willing to participate.

We were trying to build a blueprint for rural economic resilience.

A system that allowed pioneering businesses to specialize without having to become the entire supply chain themselves.

A system that allowed farmers to retain ownership and capture value within emerging supply chains.

A system that connected agriculture, manufacturing, energy, workforce development, infrastructure, and community development into one ecosystem.

Most importantly, we realized we weren't trying to build one cooperative.

We were trying to build a framework that could help communities launch their own , cooperative hubs and infrastructure while protecting the farmers, entrepreneurs, and pioneers carrying the industry's risk. Linking them together in a way where they both independent, yet cooperative and connected.

The financing challenges we encountered pushed us to think differently. We began exploring waste-to-value systems, farmer-led energy infrastructure, circular manufacturing, and creative capital stacks capable of unlocking projects that traditional financing models simply could not support.

Affordable energy, waste utilization, domestic manufacturing, and farmer-owned infrastructure were not separate conversations. They were pieces of the same solution.

We discovered that products manufactured with local feedstocks, renewable energy, and circular systems create stronger economics, lower environmental impacts, and more resilient communities.

That realization opened doors we never expected and brought together a caliber of farmers, researchers, engineers, manufacturers, innovators, investors, and public leaders we never imagined would be sitting at the same table.

IH RISE was born from that journey.

Today, IH RISE exists to support farmer-centered cooperatives, mission-aligned businesses, waste-to-value systems, domestic manufacturing, clean infrastructure, and the rural communities willing to lead the transition toward a more regenerative and resilient economy.

Simply put, we are building cooperative hemp hubs backed by clean energy, by creating a blueprint for the operating businesses and the infrastructure that supports them.

Because the people building the future should not have to build it alone.

There is strength in numbers.

We believe farmers should capture more of the value they create.

We believe pioneering businesses should have support systems instead of barriers.

We believe rural communities deserve ownership in the industries of the future.

And we believe the next generation of agriculture can look very different from the one we inherited.

Join the movement. 🌱