It smells like there is a party across Noxon Road from the Dutchess Farms subdivision in Lagrange. A town employee said on Thursday complaints have been rolling in to Lagrange Town Hall about an odor coming from a hemp farm.

"I would rather the crop didn't devalue my house and make my house stink like a skunk," wrote a Facebook user in a community forum.

"[I] hate that people move into our town and try to change it," wrote another. "We love our town the way it is."

Other neighbors like "Greg," speaking to a Spectrum News reporter from atop his horse, believe the odor to be the "smell of success."

"They get to use the land without building on it," Greg said, "and it sounds like there's supposed to be a lot of money involved in it."

The state of New York wants a piece of the hemp industry, valued at about $600 million. The plant's active ingredient, CBD, can be used in oils which can ease pain, anxiety, and symptoms of epilepsy.

It can also be used to make clothing, shoes, rope, and even biodegradable water bottles. The state is licensing certain farmers to grow hemp for now, just to study how it grows in this climate.

The managers of Hemp Productions showed Spectrum News around the 150-acre hemp farm with some plants standing more than six feet tall.

Hemp's appearance and smell is almost identical to those of marijuana leading some to have negative feelings about hemp, which the farmers said has held back the industry's progress. Hemp's THC content is nearly zero. THC is the ingredient in marijuana that creates a user "high."

Misconceptions that hemp might provide a high might have been the reason several young people have stolen buds from the farm to sell or smoke. The fascination led the farm managers to fence in the entire field.

Currently, the smell is so strong because the buds are blooming, according to an employee with the State Department of Agriculture and Markets. The orange hairs on the bud mean it is about time to harvest the crop.

Farmers plan to harvest within the next two weeks, and the smell will be gone for the season. Neighbor Dan Ferrone hopes his neighbors read up about the "economic opportunity" before their community.

"I think they didn't understand," Ferrone said of some of the Facebook posters. "They just think it's pot and it's bad. It's just being misunderstood."

Despite that possibility, the farmers are not ignoring the odor complaints. A state employee told Spectrum News at the scene that in the future, the state's hemp experts might ask farmers to try out a new hemp seed, one that emits less of a "weed" smell.