Industrial Hemp Podcast

On this week's podcast, we talk to Andy Bennett, founder of Hart Hemp Co., the first commercial-scale industrial hemp producer in the Old Line State. "We're starting as a grassroots organization, putting some industrial hemp in the ground here in the state of Maryland," Bennett said. "On a commercial scale, it's never been done." He said the company is growing several different varieties and experimenting with seeding rates across a handful of Maryland farms "to understand how this plant reacts in this area, so that as we continue to grow and ask people to grow for us, we're providing the best data that we can," he said. Lancaster Farming caught up with Bennett at one of Hart Hemp Co.'s growing locations for hemp harvest field day Sept. 7 near Frederick. During his opening remarks to attendees, he said, "Nobody here was around the last time this commodity crop was farmed in this country. So take some pride this morning in knowing that you took the time out of your busy lives to be part of something groundbreaking and positive." Lancaster Farming also spoke with Burt James, North Carolina farmer and crop consultant who works with Konopi US and FyberX. James said he sees a lot of positive movement across the county as the fiber and grain industry stands itself up. "And this is the type of example where you have a bona fide businessman and ag industry specialist in Andy Bennett," James said. "He's got a robust network of farmers, an organized group, and he's just got the passion and the energy to make something happen, and this beautiful hemp crop and field day is part of that." Also on the podcast this week, we discuss the recent manhunt for convicted murderer Danelo Cavalcante, which came to its dramatic conclusion this week just a half a mile from the home of the hemp podcast host, Eric Hurlock. Hurlock interviews his neighbors Tom and Crystal to hear how they were faring during the surreal experience of having a murderer on the loose in the neighborhood and search helicopters constantly overhead. Learn More about Hart Hemp Co. https://harthempco.com/ Learn more about Konopius US https://www.konopius.com/ Learn more about FyberX https://fyberx.eco/ Read Lancaster Farming's coverage of the Chester County manhunt as it unfolded https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/news/manhunt-for-danelo-cavalcante-disrupts-life-on-chester-county-farms-updated/article_9972ab66-517d-11ee-aafa-c72e0fa06afb.html Thanks to our sponsors IND Hemp https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ Music courtesy of Tin Bird Shadow https://tinbirdshadow.bandcamp.com/album/dot-dot-dot

On this week's hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming talks to cover crop coach Steve Groff, who was hoping to get one of those multilevel pull-behind sickle bar mowers to cut his hemp this year. But those machines are in demand and he wasn't able to get one in time, so he did the best he could. "What we did this year," he said, "is just farmer innovation." He had his local machine shop mount a sickle bar cutter on the front of his tractor. In the back, he had a pulled standard rear mount sickle bar cutter. With that setup, he could make two cuts, high and low, with each pass of the tractor. "When you cut a hemp stalk in 2- or 3-foot sections, it makes it easier for the haymaking equipment already in existence" to get the hemp ready for the retting and bailing, he said. Groff has 50 acres of fiber hemp on his farm this year, one of the largest stands of industrial hemp in Pennsylvania this growing season. Once the hemp is cut, it needs to be raked, retted and bailed. Because Groff planted his hemp into a no-till cover crop system, he was concerned about losing the thick layer of cover crop biomass covering his fields if he were to use a rotary rake or bar rake on the crop. The cover crop biomass would end up in the harvested hemp, which he said would be bad for the decortication process — the processor would have to remove the debris before processing the hemp. "But it's also bad for me as a farmer who values the soil being covered," he said. Groff had an idea. What if he used a hay merger? "I thought this could be good because it's not as aggressive the way it could pick up the hemp," he said. "I could run it high enough off the ground to get the hemp lifted up and moved, but not pick up my cover crop." Groff was able to trial two different hay merger models on the hemp at his farm. The first was made by Reiter, an Austrian manufacturer, and the other was an Anderson merger from Canada. He was happy with the results. The next step for Groff is to bail the hemp. For this he's using a round baler designed for bailing hemp and made by McHale, an Irish company. Groff is optimistic about the hemp industry in Pennsylvania, but knows there's still so much to learn. He compared it to building a bridge. "The way they're designed, they build from each end and meet in the middle and hopefully meet perfectly," he said. The farmers are figuring out how to grow it, while the processors are trying to figure out how to process it, he said. "But we need to be talking to one another so that we hit in the middle." Cedar Meadow Farm https://cedarmeadow.farm/ News Nugs, with ChatGPT summaries Kansas farmers rushed to grow hemp when it became legal, but now they're ditching ithttps://www.kcur.org/news/2023-09-01/kansas-farmers-rushed-to-grow-hemp-when-it-became-legal-but-now-theyre-ditching-it Kansas has seen a steep decline in hemp farming as CBD oil production wanes. In 2019, over 200 farmers joined the state's hemp program, but this year, only 41 secured licenses. The drop in demand for CBD has led to a shift towards other hemp products like fiber for clothing and grain for animal feed. While the CBD market has slowed, there's optimism about the potential of these alternative hemp markets in Kansas, with some businesses already thriving in fiber and grain production. Seeing a bright future for hemp in NYS https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/08/seeing-bright-future-hemp-nys Hailee Greene, an MBA student at Cornell, is focusing on the industrial applications of hemp through her company, GreeneAcres Processing. She plans to build the Northeast's first industrial hemp processing facility, emphasizing regenerative practices. The facility will provide processing services to independent growers and sell carbon credits for additional revenue. Greene sees hemp as a versatile and sustainable resource for products like paper, clothing, fuel, building materials, and bioplastics. Despite challenges in the U.S. hemp industry, she aims to build an industrial hemp supply chain in New York and plans to plant 100 acres of hemp next summer with a processing facility ready by 2024. Her goal is to support farmers and promote sustainability. USDA Releases New Hemp Handbook As Agency Works To Rebuild A Post-Prohibition Seed Bank https://www.marijuanamoment.net/usda-releases-new-hemp-handbook-as-agency-works-to-rebuild-a-post-prohibition-seed-bank/ The USDA is working to rebuild a government seed bank for hemp that was previously destroyed during prohibition and has issued updated guidance on identifying, describing, and evaluating various hemp varieties. This Hemp Descriptor and Phenotyping Handbook provides comprehensive information on the characteristics and traits of hemp, including morphology, yield, cannabinoid content, oil production, fiber quality, and more. The goal is to help researchers and breeders differentiate between hemp varieties for various applications and preserve genetic diversity. The USDA is actively contributing to the hemp indus

This week on the Hemp Podcast we shift gears a little bit and talk about flax. We go to Kneehigh Farm to meet Pennsylvania Flax Project founders Heidi Barr and Emma de Long who hosted a flax harvest educational event last week in Chester County, Pa. Heidi Barr wants you to know that flax is linen and linen is flax. A fiber artist based in Philadelphia, Barr co-founded the Pennsylvania Flax Project with Chester County farmer Emma de Long in 2020, "out of a desire to see a climate-beneficial textile crop produced regionally," she said. "The synthetic textile industry is the prime example of an industry that exploits both human labor and the natural world," and is responsible for a tenth of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, Barr said. In this episode we talk to Barr and de Long, as well as a handful of people who attended the event to learn about flax. Plus Hemp News Nuggets and upcoming hemp events. Pennsylvania Flax Project https://paflaxproject.com/ Kitchen Garden Textiles https://www.kitchengardentextiles.com/ Kneehigh Farm https://www.kneehighfarm.com/ News Nugs and Hemp Events To protect consumers, make CBD medicine only, restrict delta-8 THC to pot shops https://hemptoday.net/to-protect-consumers-make-cbd-medicine-only-restrict-delta-8-thc-to-pot-shops/ Industrial hemp plant in eastern Idaho will soon begin production https://www.eastidahonews.com/2023/08/industrial-hemp-plant-in-eastern-idaho-will-soon-begin-production/ Whitefield Global Holdings https://www.whitefieldglobal.com/ Hart Hemp Field Day Sept. 7 Hart Hemp https://harthempco.com/ Cornell Grain & Fiber Hemp Field Day Sept. 14 https://hemp.cals.cornell.edu/2023/08/11/cornell-grain-fiber-hemp-field-day-sept-14/ Cornell's Hemp Sciences MPS Concentration https://cals.cornell.edu/school-integrative-plant-science/degrees-programs/mps-degree/hemp-sciences-concentration Thanks to our Sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ Music: Tin Bird Shadow https://tinbirdshadow.bandcamp.com/album/dot-dot-dot

This week's podcast is a follow-up to a story we brought to you in April about the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Morton, Minnesota, where members of the tribe have been busy this summer building with hempcrete. With special permission, we share with you the first episode of the JD Experience, a podcast made by 12-year-old Jesse Desjarlais, who interviews two members of his tribe who have been busy making hemp a reality on the reservation: Earl Pendleton and Joey Goodthunder. Desjarlais is the son of Danny Desjarlais, the project manager and lead builder for the hemp projects at the Lower Sioux, where this summer the tribe is finishing up a hempcrete duplex that will serve as emergency housing for tribal members in crisis. Pendleton said he has been working to make his vision for hemp a reality for 15 years. "It kind of came and went as people laughed in my face for the first few years," he said. "But in the last four years, it's really gotten the support from the community leadership." Goodthunder is a farmer and grows all the hemp for the Lower Sioux. "This is my fourth growing year now," he said. "I just really enjoy the plant, I like what it can do. I see the yield bonus that I get from it from the next crop. It's a really good crop." Pendleton's vision is a circular one. The tribe will grow industrial hemp to feed the processing facility on the reservation to produce building-grade hemp hurd which the tribe will use to build housing for the community. After episode one of the JD Experience, Lancaster Farming interviews Jesse Desjarlais about his experience making the podcast and what he learned. Then we talk to his father, Danny Desjarlais, who was taking a break from the sweltering Minnesota summer with a heat index of 115. Once the house was framed, it took the hempcrete crew only four days to install the hempcrete walls using the Ereasy spray applied system. Danny said the reaction to the first hemp house on the reservation has been overwhelmingly positive. Even the naysayers, he said, have come around. "All the people that had doubted Earl for the last 15 years, now they're even like, 'Man, we should have been building with hemp 15 years ago.'," he said. The Lower Sioux Hemp project has gotten lots of attention in Minnesota, even prompting a visit from the governor and lieutenant governor, Desjarlais said. "They came and took a tour of the house and they loved it," he said. "The lieutenant governor actually wants us to retrofit her house with hempcrete now." The tribe worked with Cameron McIntosh from Americhanvre, a Pennsylvania-based hempcrete building company, and with Navid Hatfield from Massachusetts-based HempStone. McIntosh also joined the call with Jesse and Danny. "I am still at a loss for words that accurately encompass what we experienced there, what these guys did, how impressive the entire tribe is," McIntosh said. Learn more about the Lower Sioux https://lowersioux.com/ Hear Lancaster Farming's interview with Earl Pendleton and Danny Desjarlais from April 2023 https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/hemp-builds-hope-for-lower-sioux-indian-community/article_3c0a0b0a-e458-11ed-823f-271073c790d5.html Thanks to our sponsors: IND Hemp https://indhemp.com/ King's AgriSeeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/

This week we're on the road, from Ag Progress Days to Brush Mountain Bison, then to the Old Fiddler's Picnic and hemp field days at King's AgriSeeds and Penn State's research farm. This is a meandering episode. Buckle up and hold on tight. First we talk to Ag Progress Days attendee John Borders, an 83year old who just wanted to sit on a bench. Then we travel to Brush Mountain to visit with Herb Grove, hemp farmer and bison rancher. Then it's off to the 94th Annual Old Fiddler's Picnic in Chester County. And finally we end up at the King's AgriSeeds Hemp Field Day in Christiana, Pa., where we hear from Wendy Mosher from New West Genetics, Derek Montgomery from International Hemp, and Chad Rosen from Victory Hemp Foods. This week's show is made possible with generous support from IND HEMP in Montana and Mpactful Ventures in Massachusetts.

This week on the podcast, we talk to Jay Burstein, a luthier in Vermont who makes guitars from industrial hemp. His company is called Hemptone Music and specializes in fine-crafted hemp instruments. On this episode, Burstein talks about his process of making the guitars and the journey he's undertaken to improve his production methods. Burstein was first on the podcast in early 2019. Back then he was using clay and fiberglass to make molds to shape the body of the instruments, but he's since streamlined his process and now uses a more elaborate method for shaping the bodies of the guitars. "Not only do you have to design the instrument, you have to come up with the tooling involved to make it," he said. He worked with an engineer and a facility to mill the aluminum for the new body mold. He originally wanted to make a small but sturdy travel-sized guitar, after trekking through South America with a traditional guitar made from wood, which he said didn't hold up so well. "Basically the instrument I designed is the one I'd always wanted, as someone who'd done some traveling," he said. Last month, Burstein loaned one of his hemp guitars to me for my trip to the Montana Summer Hemp Summit in Great Falls. The instrument traveled well and fit nicely in the overhead compartments of the airplane. "It's approximately half of the size of a guitar, but it's got a full 25-inch scale length, which is about the string length of a full-sized guitar," Burstein said. "But I lop it off essentially at the fifth fret." For guitar players, this would be like having a capo on the fifth fret. The guitar plays like any other guitar, but the low note is an A rather than an E. Taking the guitar to Montana was a homecoming of sorts, because Burstein sourced the hemp fibers for the instrument from IND Hemp in Montana. The small guitar made a big splash at the summit, where it was on display at the Lancaster Farming expo table. Summit attendees played it and marveled at its uniqueness. Everyone wanted to know the process of how it was made. Hear Jay Burstein from Hemptone Music explain his process: Hemptone Music https://www.hemptonemusic.com/ Hemptone Music on Instagram: @hemptonemusic Penn State's Ag Progress Days https://agsci.psu.edu/apd High Five, Miss America https://www.lancasterfarming.com/country-life/fairs-and-shows/high-five-miss-america/article_cae17c9d-54ba-512c-b734-cdd948873c39.html Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/

This week on the Hemp Podcast, we talk to Sandra Marquardt, fiber crops manager at Textile Exchange, a global nonprofit that works with textile brands, manufacturers and farmers around the world to guide the industry toward purposeful production methods and sustainability goals. Marquardt is based outside of Washington, D.C., and said Textile Exchange has about 140 employees working in 30 countries. "There is such huge demand on the part of brands in particular trying to figure out how to green their supply chains," she said. "They're really turning to us to say how do we do it? What are we doing? What are the materials we use?" Textile production is a large emitter of greenhouse gases, and Marquardt's group researches what's called Tier Four of the textile supply chain. That's the farm level where the raw materials enter the system. She said she's "trying to dive into the weeds to see how cotton is grown, how hemp is grown, and how flax is grown," along with other natural fibers such as alpaca, cashmere and wool. Last month, Textile Exchange published a report on the state of the global hemp industry that looks at production methods, fertilizer and pesticide use, and output and yields by country and region. "We were under the opinion that China was No. 1 for everything. But really it's not," Marquardt said. "It's it's definitely a major player, but France is No. 1 for overall production." She said the United States, despite only having had a legal hemp industry for less than five years, is already a major player. "I think we're No. 5 for overall production," she said. Companies, countries and consumers around the world are turning to hemp because of its reputation as an environmentally friendly raw material, needing fewer inputs than other fiber crops. But as the industry scales up, can it keep that cachet? "Hemp is a great fiber, but if we don't look at how it's grown, we can't use its powers to really address the future," Marquardt said. With the report, Textile Exchange poses the question: If we have the chance to introduce a new textile fiber on the global market and design the systems and supply chains around it, shouldn't we design those systems to be carbon negative and less dependent on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides? Instead of copying the pesticide- and carbon-intensive model of cotton production, why not design the system we want right out of the gate? Growing Hemp for the Future — A Global Fiber Guide is available as a free download at TextileExchange.org. News Nuggets House Oversight Committee's Hearing on 'Hemp in the Modern World: The Yearslong Wait for FDA Action' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpmpPZkcrEk Why feral cannabis can be found throughout Iowahttps://wcfcourier.com/news/state-regional/why-feral-cannabis-is-found-in-sioux-city-and-across-iowa/article_216c0bb9-87a9-5722-8261-ffae314862b7.html Thanks to our sponsors IND HEMPhttps://indhemp.com/ Americhanvre Cast-Hemp https://americhanvre.com/

What was the Montana Hemp Summit all about? Depends on who you ask. This episode was made on location in Fort Benton and Great Falls, Montana, and a few airports along the way home back to Pennsylvania. I will update this page with a list of the people I interviewed, but now I'm home and happy to be here and grateful to have gone to Montana to witness the event. -=-=-=- On this episode you will hear from: Ken Elliott and Morgan Tweet from IND HEMP, Jordan Berger and Maxwell Duryea from Sunflower Films Co, Geoff Whaling and Erica Stark from the National Hemp Association, Jacob Bish from Hemp Harvest Works, Patrick Van Meter from Midwest Natural Fiber, Marty Clemons from FyberX, Cort Jensen from the Montana Dept. of Ag, Steve Groff from Cedar Meadow Farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Dr. Cheryl Mitchell from Steuben Foods Inc., Peter Düshop from Forever Green, and Pierre Berard. Give a listen when you can and please share it! Thank you. Again, so very grateful for this front row seat on an industry with such potential and benefit to people and the planet.

This week on the Hemp Podcast, Lancaster Farming reconnects with Alyssa Collins, associate research professor at Penn State and the director of the university's Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Manheim, Lancaster County, where she oversees hemp production and research trials. Penn State Extension's mission is to deliver science-based information to people, businesses and communities. "The Extension part of what Penn State is," said Collins, "is basically turning what nerds in a lab or a greenhouse are thinking about and doing in terms of research and translating that for people who can actually use it." Penn State's hemp research was originally conducted at the Rock Springs farm near main campus, but was moved to the Landisville farm in 2018, "because a lot of the activity and interest was in south-central PA for growing hemp," Collins said. "Our farm is also a little bit more accessible in the region. It's just easier to get to and we can do big events here in a way that it's a little bit harder to do when you're up in Happy Valley," she said. Collins was one of the first guests on the hemp podcast almost five years ago. Since then, she has seen growing interest in the industrial applications of fiber and grain varieties and decreased interest in CBD. Collins said the state of Pennsylvania is a leader in the hemp industry, in part due to the Ag Department's commitment to easing regulatory burdens and making funds available. "Unlike some other states that have either really high fees or have a lot of hoops to jump through, Pennsylvania is really trying to keep it as minimal as they can with making sure they still do their their due diligence," she said. Pennsylvania also made hemp eligible for specialty crop research funds. "Most other states have not done that. And in fact, the federal government didn't do that until recently," Collins said. Penn State is one of several dozen universities across the country contributing to variety and agronomic trials coordinated by the University of Kentucky. The research aims to determine which varieties grow best in which regions. "We're all working from the same seed lots and we get to see how they perform relatively in our areas," she said. Penn State's hemp research, including the variety trials, will be on display during the Hemp Research Field Walk Aug. 15 at the research farm. It's a chance for the public to walk and talk with industry specialists, Extension educators and policymakers to raise questions and share ideas about the industry's future. The event is free, but space is limited and pre-registration is recommended. You can register here. Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center https://agsci.psu.edu/research/centers-facilities/extension/landisville Upcoming Hemp Events Aug. 3-5 South Dakota Industrial Hemp Field Day https://www.eventbrite.com/e/industrial-hemp-field-day-tickets-643817313917 Aug. 15-16 King's AgriSeeds Field Day https://kingsagriseeds.com/ Aug. 15 Penn State Hemp Research Field Walk, Policy Update and Networking Event https://agsci.psu.edu/research/centers-facilities/extension/landisville Thanks to our sponsors: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ Hemptone Music https://www.hemptonemusic.com/ HempWood https://hempwood.com/

This week on the hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming catches up with recent Cornell grad Owen Deitcher, who is on the road this summer to visit hemp farmers and processors around the country. The reason he's making this trip, he said, is to understand where the industry is at the moment, who the main players are and what challenges they face. Deitcher sees a disconnect in the minds of the public and wants to shed some light on the journey from hemp in the field to end-products. "We don't really know what goes on in the production and processing side," he said. His first stop was in Murray, Kentucky, where Greg Wilson gave him a tour of the HempWood facility, which has grown substantially since Lancaster Farming visited HempWood two years ago on our National Hemp Tour. From Kentucky, Deitcher went to Texas where he attended a hempcrete workshop, then to South Bend Industrial Hemp in Kansas, where Melissa Nelson and the Baldwin brothers have created a strong local hemp supply chain and economy by building a hemp-processing facility. Heading west to Colorado, he spent time in Monte Vista, a regional hub of hemp innovation and processing power and home to hemp equipment manufacturer Formation Ag and Global Fiber Processing, a facility that went online in 2022. Lancaster Farming caught up with Deitcher while he was taking a break in Boulder, Colorado, before embarking soon for IND HEMP in Montana, then through the upper Midwest as he journeys eastward, eventually stopping at Steve Groff's Cedar Meadow Farm in Holtwood, Pennsylvania, sometime in August. Graduating with a master's degree in regional planning from Cornell, Deitcher is interested in renewable energy development, agrivoltaics, biofuels, circular economy, industrial hemp processing/end-use production, and agricultural supply chains. Also on this episode, we cover last week's launch of the Pennsylvania Hemp Engine and provide details on a few upcoming local and national hemp events in August. Follow along on Owen's trip on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/highwaytohemp/ Learn More About Cornell's Hemp Program https://hemp.cals.cornell.edu/ Upcoming Hemp Events Aug. 3-5 South Dakota Industrial Hemp Field Day https://www.eventbrite.com/e/industrial-hemp-field-day-tickets-643817313917 Aug. 15-16 King's AgriSeeds Field Day https://kingsagriseeds.com/ Aug. 15 Penn State Hemp Research Field Walk, Policy Update and Networking Event https://agsci.psu.edu/research/centers-facilities/extension/landisville News Nugget: IND HEMP Completes New Oilseed Certified Seed Cleaning Facility and Processing Expansion https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/07/12/2703339/0/en/IND-HEMP-Completes-New-IH-Oilseed-Certified-Seed-Cleaning-Facility-and-Processing-Expansion.html Thanks to our sponsors and supporters: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/ Americhanvre Cast-Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ HempWood https://hempwood.com/

On this week's hemp podcast, we talk to Dalton Wittmer, agronomist at IND Hemp, a hemp processing company based in Fort Benton, Montana. Growing up and working on a farm in southern Indiana and graduating from Purdue University's agronomy program, Wittmer has been chin deep in agriculture his whole life. "I worked on a farm since I was 12 and just been around livestock — cattle, pigs, a little bit of turkeys. And row cropping, corn and soybeans mainly, so I've had a pretty good learning experience on the farm," he said. His interest in industrial hemp was piqued in college where one of his advisers was leading Purdue's hemp research program. Wittmer knew there was stigma around hemp, but he said he wanted to help "bring the goodness of hemp to America and across the world" for its environmental and economic benefits. Wittmer relocated to Fort Benton a year and half ago and has been enjoying his new life in the West. "I''m an outdoors person. That's my happy place, and in Montana, you have anything outdoors you could ever imagine," he said. "And it's right outside my living room window. I get to see antelope, mule deer, moose, bears, whatever it is," he said. The town of Fort Benton is along the Missouri River in north-central Montana, where the land is generally flat but the conditions are dry and often difficult for farming. Between scant rainfall, destructive hail storms and clouds of hungry grasshoppers, farming in Big Sky Country isn't a walk in the park. Wheat is the main crop in Montana, and it's a challenge to get the small-grain guys thinking about growing a new crop like industrial hemp. "They like growing wheat. That's what makes them their money. And they know that," Wittmer said. But there are farmers in Montana who are willing to put in some acres of hemp and give it a go. This year, Wittmer said, IND Hemp has contracted farmers to grow around 7,000 acres of hemp. Five thousand of those acres are what Wittmer calls a dual-purpose crop that will yield both grain and fiber. The remainder of the acreage is a single-purpose fiber crop, he said. About half of the acreage is under pivot irrigation, but so far this year, the dryland acreage is keeping pace with the irrigated crops. "The majority of the state is sitting pretty good with moisture this year," he said. "The rains have been coming, and they've been nice amounts. You know, they've been a half-inch here, an inch there." Thanks to our sponsors for their generous support: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ HempWood https://hempwood.com/

This week on the hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming talks to Hector "Freedom" Gerardo, the first farmer to grow fiber and grain hemp in Connecticut for a very long time. Hemp was outlawed in the U.S. for most of the 20th century, but was made a legal commodity crop by the 2018 Farm Bill. "I started in 2021 growing for CBD, and last year again I grew for CBD, but I lost money," he said. He became intrigued with all of the other uses for industrial hemp, including hempcrete for construction. In April, he attended a two-day hempcrete workshop in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with hemp builder Cameron McIntosh of Americhanvre Cast-Hemp. The workshop focused on making pre-fab hempcrete panels. "Oh, man, it was eye-opening experience of the things that we could do and where the industry is headed, and the things that we can accomplish if we work together," he said about the workshop. With his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children, he runs SEAmarron Farmstead in Danbury, Connecticut. It's a 3-acre farm where they do a whole lot more than just hemp. "I love hemp, but we got to feed people. So that's the other side," he said. "We grow all types of vegetables — a lot of garlic, a lot of tomatoes, a lot of cabbage — you know, a lot of things that people want." They also run a CSA on the farm and sell to restaurants. "Because at the end of the day, we need to feed people. You know, and that's the purpose of the farm," he said. The farm hosts education events and community work days. "We do a lot of work organizing with young people around food insecurity, learning how to grow your own food," he said. Gerardo also maintains a network of BIPOC farmers. "We created the CTBIPOC (Connecticut Black Indigenous People of Color) Food Network, and it's a network of 77 bipoc farmers in Connecticut. That's all the bipoc farmers in Connecticut. Only 0.06% of all farmers in Connecticut are people of color," he said. Gerardo is optimistic that his work in hemp and community agricultural education will make a difference in the Constitution State. "We can move Connecticut into a sustainable place because right now we're not sustainable at all," he said. Connect with Freedom Gerardo on the Socials: Instagram LinkedIn News Nugs The buildings constructed from cannabis https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230614-the-buildings-constructed-from-cannabis Study finds 90% of Arizona hemp farmers failed from 2019 to 2021. Here's why (hint: it's CBD) https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/study-90-percent-arizona-hemp-farmers-failed-in-2019-2021/75-e14e075b-804e-4146-967b-e2c3ab9ebffc Shapiro Administration Awards More Than $390,000 to Grow PA Hemp Industry https://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/Agriculture_details.aspx?newsid=1322 Thanks to our Sponsors: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Americhanvre Cast Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ National Hemp Association https://nationalhempassociation.org/

On this week's Hemp Podcast, Lancaster Farming talks with Tom Trite, Sairam Rudrabhatla, Kenneth Okrepkie and David Minnig, who make up part of the leadership team of the Pennsylvania Hemp Engine. Funded by a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the Pennsylvania Industrial Hemp Engine Development Project is a strategic planning effort aimed at creating an innovative and inclusive economic ecosystem centered on industrial hemp. Spearheaded by Vytal Plant Science Research and partnering with universities, including Penn State and Emory University, and various stakeholders, the project seeks to advance technology, stimulate regional economies, address societal challenges and generate high-wage jobs. "The National Science Foundation wanted to reach out across the entire country to identify ways to stimulate the economy and take science and find out applications for commercialization," said Okrepkie from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania, a key stakeholder in the project. "We're talking about everything from space technology to lasers to industrial hemp," he said. "What we've done is created an opportunity for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, number one, that we competed on a national level to win an award." And No. 2, he said, is the opportunity for Pennsylvania to be a national leader in the hemp industry. The Pennsylvania Industrial Hemp Engine Development Project is focused on the industrial applications of hemp fiber and grain and is not focused on CBD or medicinal uses of the cannabis plant. Learn more: Pennsylvania Industrial Hemp Engine Development Project https://paihe.org Vytal Plant Science Research https://vpsresearch.org National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines https://new.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/regional-innovation-engines Hemp News Nugs How Colorado Became Ground Zero For Hemp Production https://lithub.com/how-colorado-became-ground-zero-for-hemp-production/ Agricultural Scientists Receive USDA Grant to Explore Hemp as a Sustainable Alternative to Grain in Animal Feed https://www.pvamu.edu/research/post/agricultural-scientists-receive-usda-grant-to-explore-hemp-as-a-sustainable-alternative-to-grain-in-animal-feed-2/ New research set to increase carbon capture through cropping https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2023/research/increase-carbon-capture-through-cropping/?utm_source=miragenews&utm_medium=miragenews&utm_campaign=news Hemp Fiber Market To Experience Rapid Consumption Growth Between 2023 and 2032 https://www.bowmanextra.com/news/hemp-fiber-market-to-experience-rapid-consumption-growth-between-2023-and-2032/ Rivaling steel: hemp as the 'superior' alternative https://cranbournenews.starcommunity.com.au/news/2023-06-13/rivalling-steel-hemp-as-the-superior-alternative/ Why Hemp Is The Perfect Fabric for Your Summer Wardrobe https://www.salonprivemag.com/why-hemp-is-the-perfect-fabric-for-your-summer-wardrobe/ Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ KING'S AGRISEED https://kingsagriseeds.com/

On this week's show we talk to Duane Shugars from Hemp Katalyst and the digital platform Metaihemp, which aims to bring together various parts of the industrial hemp supply chain making it easier for farmers to grow exactly what manufacturers are looking for. Learn more: Hemp Katalyst https://www.hempkatalyst.com/ Meta iHemp https://www.metaihemp.com/pages/index.html Hemp News Nuggets Contact your representatives about the Industrial Hemp Act of 2023. Tell them you support the Hemp Exemption and they should to! https://www.hempexemption.com/contactcongress 7K+ THC Laced Fake Branded Products Seized In Lancaster County: DA https://dailyvoice.com/pennsylvania/lancaster/7k-thc-laced-fake-branded-products-seized-in-lancaster-county-da/ Minnesota OKs hemp-derived delta-8 and delta-9 THC, bans other synthetics https://hemptoday.net/minnesota-oks-hemp-derived-delta-8-and-delta-9-thc-bans-other-synthetics/ USDA Renames Trade Committee To Recognize Hemp As A Key Specialty Crop https://www.marijuanamoment.net/usda-renames-trade-committee-to-recognize-hemp-as-a-key-specialty-crop/ Reps. Rosendale, Houlahan introduce Industrial Hemp Act https://financialregnews.com/reps-rosendale-houlahan-introduce-industrial-hemp-act/ Thanks to our sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/

This special bonus episode was recorded at Cedar Meadow Farm in Holtwood, Pennsylvania, where Steve Groff has been practicing no-till farming for over 30 years, and this year he has planted 50 acres of fiber hemp into his no-till system. Andrew Bish from Hemp Harvest Works and the Hemp Feed Coalition was on his way from Nebraska to Washington to lobby for hemp as an animal feed when he stopped by Steve's farm. Sarah Mitchell, hemp specialist from King's Agriseed was there too and the three of them had an amazing conversation about soil health, soil microbes, no-till farming, panting and harvesting equipment, cover crop mixes and more. Thanks to our sponsor IND HEMP.

It's that time of year again — time to get your hemp seeds in the ground. On this week's podcast, we check in with a handful of farmers (and one processor) to hear how things are going. What varieties are they planting, how much acreage, how's the weather? First we talk to Herb Grove, farmer and bison rancher in Center County, Pennsylvania, who said he's looking to put in about 45 acres of grain hemp this year but hasn't planted yet because of the lack of rain. "I don't think there's much hurry getting it in the ground. It ain't gonna do much till it gets some moisture. So we're going to play the rain game and hit it hard right before an estimated rain shower, I hope," Grove said. Lack of rain is also an issue for Katherine Dubansky at Backbone Farm in Garrett County, Maryland, where she grows produce as well as hemp for CBD. "We decided to go on the real low side this year and grow 300 plants, which is the smallest number we've ever grown," she said. She started her seeds in the greenhouse about 10 days ago and expects to get into the field in another 10 days or so. For Steve Groff in Lancaster County, the lack of precipitation is an issue, but it's not as bad as it could be, thanks to his cover crops and no-till farming practices. He direct-seeded 50 acres of fiber hemp the third week of May and has good emergence. He said he was concerned that there might not be enough moisture to germinate the seeds. "But I got to mention our regenerative agriculture methods, using cover crops and no-till, which is definitely in our favor. We're able to hold the moisture in that soil," he said. For Aaron Templin, operating partner at Dakota Hurd Company in Fargo, North Dakota, things are looking good. He's working with three local farmers to grow about 100 acres of fiber to feed the processing facility. The hemp was planted in early May and weather-wise, they seem to be OK. In Sikeston, Missouri, Jeff Limbaugh is managing the hemp production for Midwest Natural Fiber. He said they've got about half of the anticipated 600 acres in the ground in the southeastern corner of the state, referred to regionally as the Boot Heel. He said they're still determining the best planting density, somewhere between 700,000 and million seeds per acre. "Our best method is drilling down on a seven and a half inch spacing," Limbaugh said. Brush Mountain Bison https://www.facebook.com/brushmountainbison Backbone Hemp https://backbonehemp.com/ Maryland Mountain Hemp Alliance http://www.mountainmarylandhemp.org/ Cedar Meadow farm https://cedarmeadow.farm/ Hemp Harvest Work's FiberCut https://hempharvestworks.com/fibercut/ Dakota Hurd Companyhttps://www.dakotahurd.com/ Midwest Natural Fiber https://www.midwestnaturalfiber.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/

Half the people in the world menstruate, but nearly no one knows exactly what feminine hygiene products are made of and how those materials may be affecting the health outcomes of the people using the products, according to Claire Crunk, founder and CEO of Trace Femcare. "Part of why there is so little transparency in period products, Crunk said, "is because the supply chain is global, complex and opaque, and the solution to that is to build regionalized supply chains that are brand-led and very intimate." Which is exactly what she's doing at Trace, where they make tampons and pads from a blend of hemp and cotton. Crunk was a women's health nurse practitioner and owned her own practice for more than 10 years in Tennessee. During this time she saw many patients with vulvar rashes, period pain, period irregularity, infertility and more. She dug into the research and tried "to understand how the products in our environment that we put on and in our bodies could be affecting health outcomes," she said. The more she learned about the opaqueness of the tampon industry, the more her frustration grew. She said that most products on the market, regardless of brand, are made by the same small group of manufactures, and often these manufactures don't themselves know what's in their products. "This is a huge problem that we're trying to solve in the industry," she said. "There's just no transparency. The tampon manufacturer doesn't know what chemicals are being used to process the fibers that they're purchasing to make their products." She said that these formulations are often proprietary, so even if you ask the fiber producers what chemicals they are using, they won't disclose them. "So a lot of the risk assessment is categorical in nature instead of precise," Crunk said. She pointed to the use of PFAS, or forever chemicals, in menstrual underwear, which can cause infertility, cancer and autoimmune disorders. "They're endocrine disruptors, hormone disruptors. So to put that in a product that's touching our reproductive organs, that's a big problem to me," she said. After a decade of running her women's health practice, Crunk suffered from severe burnout and walked away from it all, and embarked on her own journey of healing. Her time of recovery was also a time of discovery. She was struck with the idea to build a brand of feminine products made from natural materials like hemp and cotton that offered transparency in the supply chain. And Trace Femcare was born. "And to this day, I think we're the only brand that knows what farm practices happen in their fiber production," she said. The hemp fiber used in Trace's tampons is sourced from hemp grown and processed in the U.S., mostly from North Carolina and Montana. "Our product is blended with a regenerative cotton called Climate Beneficial cotton, and all of our cotton is grown and processed in the U.S. as well," she said. Building Trace Femcare Crunk founded the company in 2018 and soon brought in two additional co-founders to make her dream a reality — Meg Galaske, a holistic medical doctor and energy healer; and Olaf Isele, an engineer who has specialized in absorbent hygiene products for over 25 years. Together they have built Trace and are preparing to launch their first product this summer, an applicator-free, biodegradable menstrual tampon, with several more products in the pipeline. "Our mission at Trace is to heal the earth with our periods." Crunk said. As girls grow up into women, they get signals from society that "periods are something dirty or something bad, a problem that needs to be fixed, hidden, to be taken care of," she said. "And that's how we're marketed to. But we believe that our periods can be a tool to healing — and in this case, healing the earth. So I started Trace because I was looking for period products that were made of materials that were healthier for our bodies," she said. "I wanted to make tampons and pads with full traceability down to farm level and operate a brand where I personally know every single person that touches the making of this product, and every single chemical, and have a primary voice in guiding that process, too. So, I'm proud to say that we have accomplished that." Trace Femcare https://traceyourtampon.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/

This week on the hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming talks with Alejandra Diaz, a hemp entrepreneur, educator and activist from Los Angeles. Diaz does business development and sales for Hemp Fortex, a Chinese manufacturer of sustainable textiles with a specialization in hemp fabrics. "Most of our fiber comes from China, and currently sourcing some from France as well," Diaz said. "And (we are) now looking to the U.S. and other parts of the world to source fiber." Diaz has been a leader in her community, organizing education programs around hempcrete, hemp farming and hemp clothing. Also on the podcast this week, we share an interesting hempcrete project. It's a collaboration between the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast and Americhanvre Cast-Hemp, a hempcrete building company based in Barto, Pennsylvania. The idea was to build hempcrete acoustic panels for the walls of the new podcast studio in Lancaster Farming's Ephrata office. Earlier this week, podcast host Eric Hurlock and Cameron MacIntosh from Americhanvre built wooden frames and filled them with pigmented hempcrete using the cast in place method. The panels will spend the next few weeks curing in the Americhanvre shop and then will be trimmed out with HempWood, a hemp-based wood alternative made in Kentucky. Alejandra's Socials Instagram: @alejandrahemp_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandra-diaz-617737188/ Hemp Fortex (wholesale hemp fabric)https://www.hempfortex.com Hemp Fortex Company Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FnWselGBD8&t=126s Bastine (retail hemp fabric)https://bastine.com Industrial Hemp Alliance at Los Angeles Trade Technical College https://www.industrialhempalliance.net Sustainable Culture: Hemp x Couture Fashion Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG5QNWmcYP4&t=19s Hemp Traders https://www.hemptraders.com Hemp Traders YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@hemptraders5881/videos News Nuggets Pennsylvania hemp initiative aims to build out regional supply chainshttps://hemptoday.net/pennsylvania-hemp-initiative-aims-to-build-out-regional-supply-chains/ Industry Leaders' hemp vision for the 2023 Farm Bill falls far shorthttps://hemptoday.net/industry-leaders-hemp-vision-for-the-2023-farm-bill-falls-far-short/ Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMPhttps://indhemp.com/ National Hemp Associationhttps://nationalhempassociation.org/ Americhanvrehttps://americhanvre.com/

On this week's hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming talks with Hunter Buffington, a Colorado-based hemp policy expert with Agriculture Policy Solutions. She shares her concerns about legislation in the Colorado House of Representatives that she says threatens the hemp industry nationwide. SB23-271 attempts to address the the issue of intoxicating cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC, a synthetic compound derived from hemp with similar effects to marijuana. Synthetic cannabionoids currently occupy a gray area in the national hemp market. Some states are outlawing them while others are regulating their use. Buffington recently wrote an opinion piece on the hemp news website Let's Talk Hemp entitled "Colorado Intoxicating Cannabinoid Legislation Threatens an Industry, Fails to Protect Patients and Endangers America's Children." She said special interests groups have hijacked the bill by convincing lawmakers to add numerous amendments in the 11th hour. "The marijuana industry group and a couple of large dispensaries were writing these amendments. We can see their influence," Buffington said. The interests of the marijuana industry differ from those of the hemp industry, even though both industries are built around the uses of the cannabis plant. Buffington said the Colorado bill could also have negative effects on the fiber and grain sector of the hemp industry, with implications for hemp cosmetics and food. "It's a slippery slope," she said, "because we're opening up the door to now have to regulate THC content in these products." Agriculture Policy Solutions http://www.agpolicysolutions.com/ Colorado Intoxicating Cannabinoid Legislation Threatens an Industry, Fails to Protect Patients and Endangers America's Children https://letstalkhemp.com/colorado-intoxicating-cannabinoid-legislation-threatens-an-industry-fails-to-protect-patients-and-endangers-americas-children/ SB23-271: Intoxicating Cannabinoid Hemp And Marijuana https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-271 Learn more about the issue on the Hemp Rising podcast with Josh Schneiderhttps://hemprising.buzzsprout.com/1951087/12791512 Contact the Office of Colorado Governor Jared Polishttps://www.colorado.gov/governor/contact-us New Nuggets Jon Tester wanted to soften hemp regulations and turned to industry officials to help craft the bill https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/07/jon-tester-wanted-to-soften-hemp-regulations-00095634 You elected them to write new laws. They're letting corporations do it instead.https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/ 'Hemp Hotel' Trails South Africa's Green Credentials https://www.africa.com/hemp-hotel-trails-south-africas-green-credentials/ European Hemp Leaders Launch Bid To Designate 'Natural' CBD A Traditional Food https://businessofcannabis.com/european-hemp-leaders-launch-bid-to-designate-natural-cbd-a-traditional-food/ Colorado lawmakers say compromise reached on THC levels for CBD https://hemptoday.net/colorado-lawmakers-say-compromise-reached-on-thc-levels-for-cbd/ Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMPhttps://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventureshttps://www.mpactfulventures.org/

This week on the Hemp Podcast, U.S. Congressman David Trone, a Democrat from Maryland's sixth district, is our guest. Trone recently introduced The Free to Grow Act, which he says will end discriminatory policies that are keeping people from entering the job market in the hemp industry. The 2018 Farm Bill which legalized industrial hemp as a commodity crop prohibited anyone with a felony drug conviction in the past 10 years from obtaining a license to grow hemp. Trone believes this prohibition goes against the idea that once you've done your time, you should be able to participate fully in the economy. "I think all of us in America believe in second chances," he said. "We've all made mistakes. And if someone makes a mistake, they go to jail. But then after that, when they come out, we want them to get a job and build a family and be successful and not go back to jail." The Free to Grow Act has bipartisan support in the House, citing co-sponsorship from David Joyce, R-Ohio, Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. "So together, all of us are working to get this through," Trone said. Giving people a second chance is big issue for Trone, who said he recently founded a Second Chance Caucus in Congress. "I got 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats. And together, you know, we're working all kinds of legislation to help people that have been in prison stay out of prison when they're done paying their time," he said. Trone said he thinks getting the Free to Grow Act into the the 2023 Farm Bill is the most likely route to getting this bill signed into law. Trone also weighed in on the 2023 Industrial Hemp Act, recently introduced in the Senate, that aims to separate industrial hemp grown for fiber and grain from CBD and medicinal cannabis by removing the burdensome regulations that the hemp industry says is holding the industry back from reaching its full potential as a food ingredient and raw material for manufacturing. While there is as of yet no companion bill in Congress, Trone said, "We're going to take a good look at that. We certainly 100% support cutting all burdensome regulation." Trone is no stranger to the demands of running a farming operation, having grown up on a farm in Adams County, Pennsylvania. "We had a 200-acre farm, mostly corn, wheat, a lot of hay. Then we had 55,000 layers and we purchased chicken eggs from other laying operations all through Lancaster. So I used to drive trucks all through Lancaster picking up eggs," he said. Not just chickens, but hogs too, he said. "We finished around 600 hogs at a time and turned them over. Buy 'em at 40 and sell 'em at 220 — so I understand that business." "Here in Congress, I'm one of the few people that really gets farming, having done it for, you know, decades." Learn more: Rep. David Trone https://trone.house.gov/ Trone Introduces Two Bipartisan Agriculture Bills to Promote Second Chances for Returning Citizens https://trone.house.gov/2023/03/07/trone-introduces-two-bipartisan-agriculture-bills-to-promote-second-chances-for-returning-citizens/ News Nuggets Tester introduces bipartisan bill to deregulate industrial hemp https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/25/tester-introduces-bipartisan-bill-to-deregulate-industrial-hemp/ Industrial hemp plant begins production in Lake County https://www.madisondailyleader.com/news/article_d28b5992-e46e-11ed-90d2-33d06d86e507.html New interest in fiber hemp https://www.farmprogress.com/hemp/new-interest-shown-for-fiber-hemp U.S. hemp industry hopes for better times ahead https://www.producer.com/markets/u-s-hemp-industry-hopes-for-better-times-ahead/ Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseedshttps://kingsagriseeds.com/

On this week's hemp podcast, we focus on the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Morton, Minnesota. The Lower Sioux are part of the larger Dakota tribe, which once thrived in the Upper Midwest, following the bison herds across the Great Plains. The Lower Sioux Indian Community sits along the southern bank of the Minnesota River in southwestern Minnesota. The tribal land was greatly reduced after the Dakota War of 1862. Earl Pendleton, vice president of the tribal council, is the first guest on the podcast this week. Pendleton describes life on the reservation and how things have changed over the course of his life. "There's a lot of history in this area for the relations between the U.S. government, the state government and the Dakota people," he said. "The U.S./Dakota conflict of 1862, which is 160 years ago, is still kind of fresh out here. And there's still a lot of tension between who we are and what we deserve." "The reason for that conflict was people seeing their families starve and seeing their food sources being eliminated around them and the encroachment of settlers and things like that," Pendleton said. The conflict led to some of the most brutal episodes in American history, including the public hanging of 38 Dakota warriors the day after Christmas 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. "Obviously, I don't blame anybody here today for that. But I think there's just a story that should be told. I think our our kids need to hear our real history and feel proud of who they are,' he said. One of the bright spots for Pendleton and the Lower Sioux Community is industrial hemp. 2023 is their fourth season of growing the crop. "We're at a pretty small scale," Pendleton said. "We started at 40 acres, we moved up to 80 and 100, and I think we're doing 100 again this year. So we have a a stockpile of of hemp bales that are ready for processing." The Sioux grow a dual-purpose variety called X59, which produces grain and fiber. The tribe sells the grain and processes the fiber on site with a 1-ton-per-hour decorticator. The vision is to use the hemp fiber to build houses for the community. Many homes are government housing, Pendleton said, and were not built with the best materials or with longevity in mind. And there is a shortage of housing too. "We have a lot of families living together, overcrowding, some homelessness," he said. "So when I looked at hemp and seen that is a potential for construction, it seemed like the perfect fit for our community." Working with HempStone, a hempcrete construction company from Massachusetts, the tribe is learning how to turn their hemp hurds into hemp housing. Last year the group completed a small shed as proof of concept. And this summer the tribe is building its first full-size home. The tribe is also building a home made from conventional materials to do a side-by-side comparison of energy efficiency. Danny Desjarlais is the project manager for the tribe's hemp-building endeavors, and also a guest on this week's podcast. A traditional builder by trade, he is a convert to building with hemp. "I don't want to use any traditional buildings anymore. You know, after discovering the hemp and the hempcrete and all of its benefits has just been very eye-opening for me as a builder," he said. Desjarlais sees great potential in hemp for existing houses in the community. "We have 165 houses on our reservation right now; 160 of them probably need retrofitting or could be fixed up in some way," he said. Desjarlais said the people of his community are very excited by the prospect of industrial hemp and the hope it brings. "Our people used to follow the buffalo, and we used every part of the buffalo, he said. "And so I look at hemp as like the green buffalo — we can use every part of the plant. And so we're only barely just scraping the surface right now with with growing and building houses out of it." Lower Sioux Indian Community https://lowersioux.com/ HempStone https://hempstone.net/ Tell Your Senator You Support the 2023 Industrial Hemp Act If you think grain and fiber hemp farmers should be able to grow grain and fiber like they can grow corn and soy, then contact our senator and tell them to support the Industrial Hemp Act of 2023. https://www.hempexemption.com/contactcongress Thanks to our sponsors: Mpactful Ventures An investment and incubation company focused on sustainability and supporting startups and other initiatives that play a vital role in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change. At Mpactful ventures, they strive to amplify enterprises that bring innovative, green opportunities to the forefront and empower those making a significant impact for a sustainable future. https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

Can plants communicate with each other? Do they know when they're under attack from pests? Can they tell one type of insect pest from another—say, an aphid from a caterpillar? The answer may surprise you. According to this week's podcast guest, Aaron Appleby, the answer to all three of these questions is a resounding yes. Appleby, a Ph.D. candidate at Washington State University in the Crop Science department, specializes in organic pesticides, with a focus on the hemp russet mite and fiber hemp. Appleby said his research at WSU involves bringing organic production to the Palouse region of Eastern Washington and North central Idaho, the largest wheat growing region in the United States. Appleby is also a certified crop advisor and owner of White Coat Laboratories, a cannabis research company in Pullman, Washington. "We are studying how plant volatiles can increase secondary metabolites and attract beneficial arthropods to your system to reduce pest pressure," he said. Appleby said plants communicate with each other by releasing clouds of chemicals, which Appleby calls "plant screams." For instance, if a plant is under attach by a certain pest, the plant will produce a chemical cloud containing information that surrounding plants will sense and decipher, giving them a heads up on an impending pest attack. Appleby said plants use as many as fifty chemicals to convey specific information. He likens the combinations of chemicals to our alphabet of 26 letter that we use to build words and sentences to convey meaning. "In much the same way, plants are able to combine these different chemicals in different ratios to convey different messages to their community," he said. Is it possible to harness this communication system for commercial production? Can the communication among plants be enhanced to reduce our dependence on chemical fertilizers? Does this hyper-awareness mean that plants possess a form of consciousness? That's exactly what we're talking about on this podcast episode. Plus we have a check-in call with Jeremy Klettke of Davis Hemp Farming in Oregon. Aaron Appleby on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-appleby-901113272/ Washington State University Department of Crop and Soil Sciences https://css.wsu.edu/ Davis Hemp Farm https://davishempfarms.com/ News Nuggets Introducing the 1st shoe made from CBD weed https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/627753860/introducing-the-1st-shoe-made-from-cbd-weed Prowl Studio develops "first injection-moulded chair that can be composted" https://www.dezeen.com/2023/04/17/prowl-studio-peel-chair-m4-factory-milan-design-week/ Don't Lose Hope For The U.S. Hemp Industry https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthoban/2023/04/18/dont-lose-hope-for-the-us-hemp-industry/?sh=d323f776e4bb Thanks to our sponsors! IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Americhanvre Cast-Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ National Hemp Association https://nationalhempassociation.org/

Geoff Whaling, chair of the National Hemp Association, joins us on the Industrial Hemp Podcast this week to talk about NHA's priorities for what they'd like to see in the 2023 Farm Bill. Topping that list is the bifurcation, or division, of the hemp industry, Whaling said, with legislation that would create a sub-definition of industrial hemp grown for fiber and grain, making it easier for row crop farmers to add it to their current rotations of crops like corn, soy and wheat. Currently, hemp farmers are subject to expensive permitting fees, FBI background checks and finger printing, and costly on-farm government testing of cannabinoid content in the field. Whaling said these requirements are barriers to the industry that keep farmers from growing industrial hemp at a scale that can establish a robust domestic hemp industry, because farmers are being treated like criminals for wanting to grow a commodity crop that can be used for food, feed, fuel, fabric and more. Whaling said NHA supports the CBD industry. "I don't want to negate the importance that cannabinoids have in this marketplace," but it's important for the two sides of the industry to be regulated differently. Whaling said the industry faces difficult educational challenges with the public and, almost more importantly, with lawmakers. "We would go into senators' offices who were leaders in this space, and their staff did not know or believe that you could plant hemp as a row crop," he said. Last month, Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Mike Braun, R-Ind., introduced the 2023 Industrial Hemp Act, which would remove the barriers for farmers who want to grow hemp as commodity crop rather than a specialty crop, the way CBD hemp is grown. If the bill does not pass as a stand-alone piece of legislation, Whaling is hopeful it will be added to the 2023 Farm Bill. Another priority for NHA is hemp for animal feed. "We get this question all the time, why is it okay for us to eat hemp hearts, we as humans, but it's not OK for us to give that to our dogs?" Whaling said. "It's a good question. But the reality is the authority for all things that are consumed by us or consumed by animals that go into the human chain is left squarely with the FDA," he said. He said state governments are taking this into their own hands, passing various legislation allowing for hemp to be used in feed for domestic animals, but Whaling said this issue deserves to be solved at the federal level, rather than by a patchwork of state laws across the country. "It most definitely is that patchwork approach," he said. "And we know that it didn't work very well for cannabinoids. And I think that if we were able to move this forward on a national program, then all citizens would be able to participate." Whaling also spoke about the work NHA is doing around the world to develop the hemp industry and to help build the market for carbon credits. While the industry has it's challenges, Whaling remains hopeful as ever. "Five years from now, we'll still be researching the potential of industrial hemp," he said. "Ten years from now, we'll be well on our way to a multibillion dollar industry. "And 20 years from now, when I'm long gone, hemp will be everywhere and people will be saying, what was the big deal?" National Hemp Association https://nationalhempassociation.org/ Hemp Exemption https://www.hempexemption.com/ News Nuggets Scientists Evaluate Potential Human Cannabinol Exposure from Consuming Meat if Cattle is Fed Hempseed Cake https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2023/scientists-evaluate-potential-human-cannabinol-exposure-from-consuming-meat-if-cattle-is-fed-hempseed-cake/ Argentina's Government Participated In First Legal Hemp Harvests In Half A Century https://internationalcbc.com/argentinas-government-participated-in-first-legal-hemp-harvests-in-half-a-century/ Now That Weed is Mostly Legal, Hemp Should Be Booming. But It's Not https://time.com/6268420/hemp-climate-solution/ Thanks to our sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ Farm https://www.farmland.fi/

I took the podcast on the road again. Sort of. I took a plane this time. Either way, I spent four days last week in Colorado at the ninth annual NoCo Hemp Expo in in Colorado Springs. This is the largest gathering of its kind in the U.S. Part expo, part educational experience, it was a celebration of all things hemp. One highlight for me was seeing Lancaster County's own Steve Groff on the main stage talking about cover crops, no-till farming and growing hemp. Another was observing the degree to which fiber and grain are dominating the conversations around hemp, as more people embrace hemp's potential as a material and a food. One of the key moments of the expo for me was a Thursday morning meeting of industry leaders and stakeholders to discuss hemp priorities for the 2023 Farm Bill. A majority of the national and state level trade associations participated. This week's podcast will focus on that meeting. What are the industry priorities for the Farm Bill? Is there consensus? What are the differences and how can they be reconciled? And what is the state of the hemp industry coming out of NoCo 2023? Listen and find out. This week's guests include Wendy Mosher from New West Genetics, Patrick Atagi from the National Industrial Hemp Council, Andrew Bish for the Hemp Feed Coalition, Jonathon Miller from U.S. Hemp Roundtable, Courtney Moran from Agricultural Hemp Solutions, Eric Steenstra from Vote Hemp, Eric Singular from International Hemp, and Herrick Fox from the Meristem Institute. VOTE HEMP https://www.votehemp.com/ Meristem Institute https://meristeminstitute.org/ New West Genetics https://newwestgenetics.com/ Hemp Feed Coalition https://hempfeedcoalition.org/ Hemp Harvest Works https://hempharvestworks.com/ International Hemp https://www.international-hemp.com/ U.S. Hemp Roundtable https://hempsupporter.com/ The National Industrial Hemp Council of America [NIHC] https://www.nihcoa.com/ Agricultural Hemp Solutions https://www.agriculturalhempsolutions.com/ Check these out too! One Plant, a film by Sunflower https://www.oneplant.film/ Davis Hemp Farms https://davishempfarms.com/ Noco Hemp Expo https://www.nocohempexpo.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors! IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/ BIG THANKS TO SUN RAY HEMP!

This week's podcast is a special hempcrete double feature. Hempcrete is a building material made from three ingredients — hemp hurd, lime binder and water — which forms a lightweight cementicious material with insulating properties. First we talk to Monica Medina-McCurdy, executive director of All Together Now Pennsylvania, an organization focused on building resilient self-sufficient regional economies, with hemp playing a leading role. Earlier this year, the organization was awarded a $48,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to promote hemp building materials and textiles. Medina-McCurdy said a portion of those funds will be used to host a hands-on hempcrete workshop May 6-7 in Barto. The two-day workshop will be lead by hempcrete builder Cameron McIntosh of Americharnve, Pennsylvania's leading hempcrete installer. "We really want to attract people who are established already in the building trades because we think that there's a huge need for education," Medina-McCurdy said. Our second guest is Kim Croes, a contractor from Michigan who attended a hempcrete workshop with McIntosh last year and has since completed work on the first hempcrete house in Michigan. Croes has been running a painting business for the past eight years. Her interest in hemp for building comes from her health concerns about toxic materials used in construction. When she heard about hempcrete, she reached out to CBD hemp farmers who had extra hemp for sale. "I needed specific hemp, Croes said. "I needed hemp that was grown for fiber. I needed it to be building-grade quality. And so just getting hemp was not as easy as it initially seemed." Croes said there are efforts underway to bring processing capacity to Michigan. She said she hopes to source local hemp hurds within a few years, but she said there is need for investment in the local processing infrastructure, especially as the automobile industry eyes hemp as a sustainable material for cars. "One little processing facility is not going to do it," Croes said. "It's going to take a buildup of things to get to that point, so someone's got to step up to the plate. It can't it be someone like me. I'm in the building sector and that's where I belong." Learn more: FiberFort https://fiberfort.com/ Register for Hempcrete Workshop, May 6-7 LINK TKTKTKTKTKTKTKT All Together Now Pennsylvania https://alltogethernowpa.org/ Americhanvre https://americhanvre.com/ Farmer Jawn Philly https://www.farmerjawnphilly.com/ News Nuggets Bill Aims to Cut Red Tape for Industrial Hemphttps://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/bill-aims-to-cut-red-tape-for-industrial-hemp/article_8764d032-c9d5-11ed-91b7-4bd93bf02333.html Hempcrete ASTM C-518 Test Results https://www.hempbuildinginstitute.org/post/americhanvre-ereasy-spray-applied-hempcrete-astm-c-518-test-results Thanks to our Sponsors IND Hemp https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ Farm https://www.farmland.fi/

This week's podcast guest is Gary Byrnes, founder and CEO of Tao Climate, an Irish technology company focused on addressing climate change by harnessing the carbon sequestration potential of large scale hemp production. Byrnes said the technology is primarily software-based and "will enable anybody involved in the hemp value chain — from the grower through to the maker to the builder with the hempcrete materials — to measure their inputs and measure their outputs." The company was selected to be part of Google's Startups for Sustainable Development program, which Byrnes said provides "one-on-one access to some of the brightest people at Google, as well as ongoing workshops and training." Tao Climate is working with hemp farmers around the world to develop large scale hemp growing operations and to quantify the carbon pulled from the atmosphere. "We want to make it really easy for people to see the carbon gains around the different activities," Byrnes said. "At the moment, the whole verification, validation and certification around carbon credits is very complex and cumbersome and expensive. So our technology will make it very easy to see the net carbon gains of all of the different activities around the hemp lifecycle. And it will also then make it easy to verify at scale," he said. The company has pilot programs around the world, including one in Kenya, where fiber hemp is being grown and measured for carbon. The hemp hurd — the inner core of the stalk — will be used for hempcrete blocks "to build sustainable housing locally where it's really, really needed," Byrnes said. "But also the bast fiber will go towards founding a female-led entrepreneurial business building hemp fabrics. So, you know, there are so many gains, so many benefits coming out of this," he said. In Ukraine, Tao Climate is "partnering with growers who are coming up to planting their hemp crop now, over the coming weeks, in minefields, having to dodge missiles and bombs on a daily basis," Byrnes said. "The reason they're so committed," he said, "is because they're using the hemp fiber from their crops to produce hempcrete to rebuild Ukraine in real time. They're building hempcrete apartment blocks, and they're housing internally displaced people from Ukraine and also war orphans." Byrnes believes that agriculture in general, and hemp in particular, are humanity's best way forward in addressing excess carbon in the atmosphere. "We have a Utopian vision, Byrnes said, "where industrial hemp is growing all over the world and it's being used to build resilience and sustainable infrastructure and housing." Tao Climate https://www.taoclimate.com Tao Climate LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/taoclimate/ Tao Climate Twitter https://www.twitter.com/taoclimate Hempoffset https://www.hempoffset.com Hempoffset Mindset newsletter https://www.hempoffset.com/subscribe/ Hempoffset Twitter https://twitter.com/hempoffset All Together Now PA's Hempcrete Workshop, May 6-7, 2023 https://alltogethernowpa.org/ Thanks to our Sponsors Americhanvre Hempcrete https://americhanvre.com/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

On this week's podcast we talk to Laura Sullivan, a fiber artist living and working in Vermont. She works at University of Vermont Extension, growing hemp fiber in the research trials at Borderview Research Farm in Alburgh. Through her work with textiles and hemp, she has come to a revelation that clothing is agriculture — or at least should be agriculture. She points to traditional ways of spinning and weaving. "Almost every culture around the world did this," Sullivan said. "So it's almost universal in that way. And those fibers were all derived from the soil. So in that sense, to me, clothing is originally agriculture and can also be agriculture again in the future." Her work at the Extension fiber trials gives her access to hemp fibers. But because there is no infrastructure in the Vermont to process hemp fiber, she does it all by hand. "I use all antique hand equipment to do my processing, and it's not ideal by any means," she said. From retting and breaking, to sketching and hackling, spinning and scouring, she takes us through the whole process. During the interview she talked about the importance of fibersheds. "A fibershed is a commitment to work within the geography of a land base," Sullivan said. "It's a way to belong to each other and the land." The fibershed movement asks: Where is fiber in our environment, and how can we work with it? Domestically produced textiles are at an all-time low, thanks to the now-replaced North American Free Trade Agreement, she said. "In 1990, 50% of clothes worn in the U.S. were made here," Sullivan said. "And now that figure stands at 2%. So in a very short amount of time, we have completely offshored the entire industry." And at what cost? "The textile industry was the biggest employer of people in rural America, and namely women and those without diplomas. So we've really lost a lot in that, especially in a state like Vermont, where we are largely rural and agrarian. It's just a huge missed opportunity," she said. Sullivan is hopeful that industrial hemp can revitalize the domestic textile industry. Laura Sullivan's Pipe Dream Hempworks https://pipedreamhempworks.com/ Northern New England Fibershed https://nnefibershed.com/ UVM Extension https://www.uvm.edu/extension New Nuggets WV House passes Industrial Hemp Development Act https://www.lootpress.com/house-passes-industrial-hemp-development-act/ Clouds darken over CBD as more states consider banning delta-8 https://hemptoday.net/dark-clouds-grow-over-cbd-as-more-states-consider-banning-delta-8/ Should Fashion Industry Switch To Sustainability To Fight Climate Change? https://www.thequint.com/news/environment/should-fashion-industry-switch-to-sustainability-to-fight-climate-change Thanks to our Sponsors! Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ Sponsor Spotlight on FARM: a platform for investing in farmland regeneration https://www.farmland.fi/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

This week on the podcast we talk to the board of directors of the newly revamped Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council. Erica Stark, Lori Daytner, Cynthia Petrone-Hudock, Cameron McIntosh and Drew Oberholtzer are active business leaders and advocates for industrial hemp in Pennsylvania. The council received $150,000 in grant money from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture for Project Invest in PA Hemp, which aims to attract investment in the state's hemp sector. Petrone-Hudock, co-owner of Hemp-Alternative in Chester County, said the grant seeks to increase customer awareness of agricultural products. "We're going to shift our message away from investing in growing hemp, because we've sort of proven in the state that that can get done," she said, "to investing in sustainable product development through the use of hemp." Oberholtzer, co-founder of Coexist Build, a design firm with a line of hempcrete construction products, said the goal of the project is to develop and create a communication strategy that brings "investment into Pennsylvania for Pennsylvania hemp companies, creating partnerships with public and private entities." Daytner, vice president of program development at Don Services, the New Castle company that created the Project PA Hemp Home, said the scope of the new project involves education and outreach. "But," she said, "there's also the financial and commercial side of it where investors may say, 'Oh yeah, this piques my interest,' but investors want numbers. They want an understanding of what's behind the opportunities that are here." Petrone-Hudock said "build demand, build demand, build demand" is the key. From a grain perspective, she said, "we need food ingredient suppliers, we need chefs, we need restaurant owners, we need local food networks to be in it, really embracing hemp. We need fabric dependent businesses to start looking at hemp as an alternative. "We need builders and designers and architects, and we need homeowners to say, 'I want to live in an eco-friendly house that's going to be healthy for me.' Like the whole key here is what's healthy. And if you embed hemp in your lifestyle, you can't go wrong. And so I think it is sort of changing the message and the target, and continuing to build this demand at the consumer level." McIntosh, owner of hempcrete construction company Americhanvre, is confident in the project and points to the Ag Department's support as a major factor in its success. "Just the fact that our Department of Agriculture is putting up this kind of money specifically for promotion of hemp products grown, manufactured and produced in Pennsylvania — that's success right there," he said. Stark, PAHIC chair and executive director of the National Hemp Association, said the council is "the perfect vehicle to make sure that the positive impacts of all of the materials that are created through this grant continue to be implemented and used indefinitely, because our our mission and our goal is to have a robust and vital hemp industry here in PA." Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council https://www.pahic.org/ Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Hemp Program https://www.agriculture.pa.gov/Plants_Land_Water/hemp/Pages/default.aspx News Nuggets Farmers March on Washington to Demand Climate Legislation https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farmers-march-on-washington-to-demand-climate-legislation/article_b81d183e-bda9-11ed-9a2e-9f76ff7759af.html Pingree Introduces Bipartisan Bill to End Discriminatory Hemp Policy https://pingree.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4507 Why India is losing trillion-dollar hemp economy https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/why-india-is-losing-trillion-dollar-hemp-economy/ Thanks to our Sponsors! King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

8000 Kicks is a Portuguese hemp shoe company founded by Bernardo Carreira and his grandmother Otilia. This week on the hemp podcast we talk to Carreira about the company and why he wanted to make shoes from hemp. "Cannabis fiber happens to be one of the most sustainable, durable natural fibers in the world," he said. "And fashion is one of the biggest polluters in the world, so it seems like you have a pretty amazing, clear solution for a very big problem." Today's show offers a unique look at the global hemp supply chain and a reminder that China is still the dominant player in hemp for textiles. "The first hemp we were buying was from France. And then we were buying from Romania," Carriera said. "But then we realized that the best hemp in the world was in China." China is far ahead of the rest of the world on hemp textiles, he said, because the Chinese never banned hemp the way the rest of the world did in the 20th Century. While the world lost 80 years of hemp production and development, China never skipped a beat. Carreira said he is hopeful that one day he will be able to source his raw materials from European or American producers, thereby cutting down on manufacturing time and shipping cost. Carreira's grandmother Otilia, co-founder of the company, has a lifetime of experience working in the textile industry in Portugal, but Carreira said she was not at all on board with his original idea of making shoes from hemp because of the marijuana stigma around hemp. But examining hemp fabric first hand she saw that hemp had nothing to do with drugs and was a very interesting material, full of possibilities, Carreira said. 8000 Kicks makes several lines of men's and women's shoes and boots, as well as various accessories like backpacks, hats, wallets and socks. Carreira has offered to giveaway a pair of hemp boots to one lucky listener of the podcast. Get the details by listening to the whole show at lancasterfarming.com or by phone at 857-385-7946 or wherever you get your podcasts. 8000Kicks https://www.8000kicks.com/ 8000 Kicks Chelsea Boot Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dopekicks/8000kicks-the-waterproof-vegan-boots Industrial Hemp Podcast Instagram Page https://www.instagram.com/industrialhemppodcast/ News Nuggets NoCo Hemp Expohttps://www.nocohempexpo.com/ March 8 is National Bio-based Products Dayhttps://www.biopreferred.gov/BioPreferred/faces/pages/NBPD.xhtml USDA's Value-Added Producer grant Programhttps://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/business-programs/value-added-producer-grants More Grant's from USDA's Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP)https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants/lamp Thanks to Our Sponsors: Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ INDHEMP https://indhemp.com/

This week on the hemp podcast, we talk to Herb Grove, hemp farmer and bison rancher from Centre County, Pennsylvania. Grove's family has been farming the land around Brush Mountain for generations, but Grove didn't get into raising bison until 2011. "We started out with two cows, two yearlings and two calves," Grove said. "That was our first six animals and we had no clue what we were getting into." After getting into it without any information whatsoever, Grove said, he joined the EBA — the Eastern Bison Association, and started networking with a lot of local bison farmers. He "fell in love with the people and what the purpose was, and from that point on it's just kind of history," he said. Grove now has one the larger bison herds east of the Mississippi with over 220 head, he said. Grove got his start growing hemp in 2019 when he contracted with Groff North America in Red Lion, York County, to grow about 150 acres of fiber hemp. He also tried his hand at growing hemp for grain, which he took to Susquehanna Mills in Muncy to press for oil. "At that point we had the byproduct of the seeds after the oil's out of it, and what better opportunity to do then start feeding it to your animals," he said. The bison didn't like the seed cake on it's own, so Grove grinds it up and puts in the ration. He teamed up with Penn State to do feeding trials to study the effects of hemp on the herd. "Unfortunately, because it's not legal to sell a finished animal for protein being fed on hemp, we can continue to feed hemp up until the last three months. And then we have to pull the hemp out of the feed rations at this point and supplement a different protein," Grove said. The first time he took hemp-fed animals to his local processor, "the state got wind of it, you know, they showed up, locked their carcass up in the cooler." Grove said the differences in the hemp-fed bison are noticeable. Their coats look shinier, the animals look healthier. And he said he can even tell the difference in the taste of the meat. Grove is now working with the Hemp Fed Coalition to change the policies around using hemp as a livestock feed. More information on Brush Mountain Bison https://www.facebook.com/brushmountainbison Buck Wild Bison https://buckwildbison.com/ Hemp Feed Coalition https://hempfeedcoalition.org/ Eastern Bison Association https://www.ebabison.org/ Susquehanna Millshttps://susquehannamills.com/ Healthy Oil Seeds https://healthyoilseeds.com/ News Nuggets Hempitecture opens first industrial hemp manufacturing plant in U.S. https://www.kivitv.com/ksaw/hempitecture-opens-first-industrial-hemp-manufacturing-plant-in-u-s Hemp growers say industry 'stymied' in Nebraska https://www.ketv.com/amp/article/nebraska-hemp-growers-say-industry-stymied/43016425 Zimbabwe strikes hemp from drugs list, sets THC limit at 1.0% https://hemptoday.net/zimbabwe-strikes-hemp-from-drugs-list-sets-thc-limit-at-1-0/ In Search for Sustainable Materials, Developers Turn to Hemp https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/business/hemp-construction-buildings.html Illinois Hemp Growers Association https://www.illinoishga.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors National Hemp Association https://nationalhempassociation.org/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

This week on the Lancaster Farming Hemp Podcast, we talk with James Forbes and Rich Selby from Tiber Fiber, a hemp processor near St. Louis with one facility in Fenton, Missouri, and another just across the Mississippi River in Sauget, Illinois. "We have a unique symbiotic relationship with our farmers in which we extend grower contracts and agreements along with feedstock and agronomy support to ensure that our farmers here in the Midwest are successful in growing the crop that we need to feed our hemp fiber processing plant," said Forbes, co-founder and chief operations officer at Tiger Fiber. Selby is a co-founder of the company, the de facto chief financial officer, and he manages the agronomy program with Forbes. The partners met at the University of Missouri and founded Tiger Fiber with Jerred Killoren in 2018. In this episode, Selby and Forbes tell the story of the company, describe the processing facilities, explain how they contract with farmers, and share how they handle the challenge of building a company in a new industry. Selby said one of the options their farmers can choose is price per pound. He said they're contracting with a farm in Illinois that knocked it out of the park. "They showed me and all the rest of us how to farm it," he said. "And they did 50 acres and they chose the price per pound option. And they made more money than they could make with corn and soybeans." Tiger Fiber https://tigerfiberhemp.com/ Tiger Fiber on the Socials LI: tiger-fiber-hemp-company FB: tigerfiberhemp IG: @tigerfiber Thanks to our sponsors: Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

This week on the hemp podcast we talk to Seth Boone, vice president of business development at PanXchange, a Colorado-based market structures solutions company and a leading benchmark price provider and analyst in the hemp industry. PanXchange also facilitates a trade platform, which Boone sees becoming "a central marketplace for the main products in hemp — fiber and grain, as well as cannabinoids," he said. Boone is the lead author of an in-depth report titled US Industrial Hemp Fiber: Processor Capacity and Margins, which provides an overview of the domestic market, including supply and demand figures, anticipated trends, and a competitive landscape with price comparisons of incumbent materials. Published in December 2022, the report showcases the significant growth of hemp fiber industry in the few short years since the 2018 Farm Bill brought hemp back into the fold of industrial crops. Boone said there is tremendous opportunity on fiber side, which "lead us into doing that report, as well as just what we are seeing emerging in the U.S. in the fiber industry," he said. "It seems like there's so many people really waiting on green lights to come in and tackle this industry." What are those green lights? "Everyone's waiting on a supply chain to be built, Boone said. "And this year would be the first year that we had significant decortication capacity." Processing capacity in the U.S. has been scant, with only a handful of facilities in operation. "Maybe five processors that have been working on proof of concept," he said, but this year those five processors are ready for scale production and have plans to plant the acreage necessary. And right at their heels are another "twenty or so processors that are scaling into that right now and over the next five years," he said. But what's missing, he said, are second and third tier processing levels, like spinning, roving, carding and cottonization, a process that adapts hemp fibers so they can be blended with cotton and wool fibers. Boone sees 2023 as a pivotal time for the industry as processing capacity starts to scale. "This will be the first year that there's really an opportunity to have supply to work with in the U.S.," he said. For Boone, that's one of the reasons PanXchange published the report in the first place: "Honestly, we really kind of need to show them that the green light is there," said Boone. PanXchange https://panxchange.com/ US Industrial Hemp Fiber: Processor Capacity and Margins The following link will give you 5% off purchase price simply for being a loyal listener to our podcast: https://panxchange.com/purchase-us-industrial-hemp-fiber-processor-capacity-and-margins-lancaster/ News Nuggets or Calendar Items, You Decide Wisconsin Cannabis Industry and Policy Summit February 15, 2023 https://www.indigenouscannabis.org/wisconsin-cannabis-summit Virtual 2023 Vermont Industrial Hemp Conference February 23, 2023 https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/Northwest-Crops-and-Soils-Program/2023%20Events/Industrial%20Hemp%20Conf/2023_HempConf_Brochure.pdf Illinois Department of Ag Hemp Summit March 15, 2023 Save the date. Fingers crossed, more info to come. Illinois Dept of Ag https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/agr/Plants/Pages/Industrial-Hemp.aspx Send the Illinois Department of Agriculture an email asking about the event. Seriously it's like 5 weeks away and there's absolutely no information online about it. And if no one shows up, they'll scratch their government heads as to why it was so poorly attended. Sorry, Illinois, I don't mean to be so passive aggressive towards your Department of Ag. It's just that there are actual and concrete things they can do as a department to show they support the industry and are taking hemp seriously, one of which is promoting their own event. https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/agr/About/Pages/ContactUs.aspx For More information about growing hemp in the Land of Lincoln, contact: Illinois Hemp Growers Association https://www.illinoishga.com/ Virtual Nebraska Hemp Conference and Trade ShowSorry, I forgot to mention this one on the show, but it's coming up soon too. March 25-26, 2023 https://www.bionebraska.org/nebraska-hemp-conference-and-trade-show/ Noco Hemp Expo March 29-21, 2023 Colorado Springs, CO https://www.nocohempexpo.com/ Thanks to our sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/

In the second episode of season three we talk with Pennsylvania state Sen. Tim Kearney of Delaware County, who recently introduced a bill that would rewrite Pennsylvania's definition of hemp so it matches the federal definition and would remove hemp from the state's list of controlled substances. The 2018 Farm Bill removed industrial hemp from the federal list of controlled substances, but industrial hemp is still considered a controlled substance at the state level in Pennsylvania, creating a potentially precarious legal situation for hemp growers in the state. "That's important," Kearney said, "because we don't want anybody to fear prosecution in interactions with the police over a legal product." "Hemp entrepreneurs should not have to fear whether they're going to get tangled up in legal proceedings over their farms or their businesses," he said. PA Senate Memorandum: Removing Industrial Hemp from PA's Schedule of Controlled Substances https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20230&cosponId=39116 How to contact your state representatives in Pennsylvania https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/index.cfm News Nuggets USDA Issues First National Hemp Report Announcement https://www.ams.usda.gov/press-release/usda-issues-first-national-hemp-report USDA's First National Hemp Report https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/fvhemp.pdf Shapiro Administration Awards $200,000 to Grow Hemp Industry; Invites Proposals for $392,000 in Grants https://www.media.pa.gov/Pages/Agriculture_details.aspx?newsid=1298 FDA Concludes that Existing Regulatory Frameworks for Foods and Supplements are Not Appropriate for Cannabidiol, Will Work with Congress on a New Way Forward https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-concludes-existing-regulatory-frameworks-foods-and-supplements-are-not-appropriate-cannabidiol?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery Mariposa Investment Opportunity https://wefunder.com/mariposa.technology.inc/ Special Thanks to our Sponsors: Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

This is the first episode of season three of the Industrial Hemp Podcast, in which we zoom out a bit and talk about the basics: what industrial hemp is, how it's used, and why it's important. In this episode you will hear podcast host Eric Hurlock explain from his unique perspective the following things and more: • What hemp is • How it differs from marijuana • The history of hemp • The importance of hemp in ancient times • How cannabis prohibition came about • The legal definition of hemp • The parts of the cannabis plant • Various uses of the plant, specifically the fiber, hurd and grain • Nutritional value of hemp • How hemp can help mitigate climate change • How much carbon hemp can sequester • Industry challenges • Much, much more More information about topics covered in this episode: Greg Wilson, HempWood Bruce Dietzen, Renew Hemp Sports Car IND HEMP in Montana Nutritional Value of Hemp History of Hemp Thanks to our sponsor: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

Here's part two of our 2022 Year in Review, in which we listen back to episodes 26 through 49.

On part one of our year in review, we listen back to the first 25 hemp podcast episodes of 2022.

This week on the Hemp Podcast, we check back in with hempcrete builder Cameron McIntosh, who has had a busy year building projects around the country, hosting workshops, and lecturing for universities and organizations like the American Institute of Architects. He gives an overview of the building projects he completed this year, including several in Pennsylvania and a few on the West Coast. Earlier in this year, hempcrete construction was added to the International Residential Code index, which he says is a great first step toward gaining approval for hempcrete for commercial building. "It's a good step in that direction, saying that we've got good, prescriptive guidance on how to do this properly," he said. His company, Americhanvre Cast-Hemp, imports hemp hurd from France because the domestic market is not fully developed, but McInstosh said American producers are getting close. His company is the North American distributor of the Ereasy Spay Applied Hempcrete System. McIntosh also addresses concern brought up by a previous podcast guest who had an issue with the lack of R-value testing on hempcrete. Americhanvre Cast-Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ Video: Cameron Explains the Ereasy Spray Applied Hempcrete System https://www.lancasterfarming.com/community/videos/cameron-mcintosh-explains-the-ereasy-spray-applied-hempcrete-system/video_e8114c8c-03d8-11eb-821e-e7627e6e69c7.html News Nuggets Sen. Hinchey's bill to expand use of industrial hemp signed into law https://westchester.news12.com/sen-hincheys-bill-to-expand-use-of-industrial-hemp-signed-into-law Hemp: Growing A Made-In-USA Industry https://www.textileworld.com/textile-world/features/2022/12/hemp-growing-a-made-in-usa-industry/ Texas researchers say they'll have new hemp varieties ready by 2024 https://hemptoday.net/texas-researchers-say-theyll-have-new-hemp-varieties-ready-by-2024/ Thanks to our Sponsors: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Venture https://www.mpactfulventures.org/

Last week, in Bangkok, Thailand, a delegation from the American hemp industry took part in the 2022 Asia International Hemp Expo. On this special edition of the podcast, we hear from three members of that delegation about why they went, what was accomplished, and what the overall experience was like. We talk to Morris Beegle, the founder of the NoCo Hemp Expo; Gregg Gnecco, marketing director at IND HEMP in Montana; and Mandi Kerri, CEO of the Global Hemp Association.

On this week's hemp podcast, we talk to Sarah Stephens, CEO of Midwest Hemp Technology, a hemp processing company in Augusta, Kansas, that contracts local farmers to grow hemp grain and fiber to produce hemp seed food and oil, as well as long-strand fiber. Stephens' journey into hemp started with CBD, but she realized that the potential for long-term growth was on the fiber and grain side, especially in Kansas with it's ample farmland and existing agriculture infrastructure. "I grew for CBD the first two seasons, like 95% of all licenses in Kansas were designated for," she said. "And I was going to some of these events and farmers were talking about walking their fields and pulling out males and drip tape. And it just did not equate to what I see as traditional production farming." While overall fiber and grain acreage in the Sunflower State is still relatively low, there is increasing interest among farmers. Midwest Hemp Technology is one of several hemp processors in Kansas, including South Bend Industrial Hemp and Prairie Band Ag. Stephens said the Kansas Department of Agriculture is supportive of the hemp program and she gets the sense that the state wants it to succeed, but the department's hands are sometimes tied when it comes to regulations. "But I see them advocating for rural changes and easing of restrictions and more commonsense approaches," she said. Midwest Hemp Technology https://www.midwesthemptech.com/ "Harvest & Hemp on the Horizon" 4th Annual Kansas Hemp Conference Q4 Webinar Register here: https://secure.touchnet.com/C21797_ustores/web/store_cat.jsp?STOREID=34&CATID=519&SINGLESTORE=true News Nuggets UN report on hemp marks path to an $18 billion global industry https://hemptoday.net/un-report-on-hemp-marks-path-to-an-18-billion-global-industry/ UN Report on Hemp https://unctad.org/webflyer/commodities-glance-special-issue-industrial-hemp Update: SD Hemp Industry Is On The Grow https://www.yankton.net/community/article_6630eaf8-751c-11ed-923e-8b7e55627eb9.html Newly formed global hemp body names Australian on inaugural board https://www.cannabiz.com.au/newly-formed-global-hemp-body-names-australian-to-inaugural-board/ Thanks to our Sponsors: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ New Holland Ag https://agriculture.newholland.com/nar/en-us

On this week's hemp podcast, we talk to Morgan Tweet, executive director of the Hemp Feed Coalition, who recently participated in a two-day hemp feed workshop co-hosted by the coalition, Oregon State University and the Hemp Innovation Center. There was a strong showing of university researchers at the event, along with representatives of FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine and the Association of American Feed Control Officials. "We felt like the best way to have a productive dialog between research, regulators and industry," Tweet said, "was to bring everyone into one room to review what current research there was, have the discussion about what was needed, and then identify steps forward." Hemp grain was given GRAS (generally regarded as safe) status for human consumption by the FDA many years ago, but it is not federally legal to feed hemp grain to livestock. Some states, like Montana, have written laws to allow hemp grain to be used in feed for companion animals, but the process to gain widespread approval for hemp as a livestock feed for production animals involves time-consuming and expensive testing, Tweet said. Hemp grain has an attractive nutritional profile — high in protein and amino acids — and is often referred to as a superfood, but without opening up the livestock feed markets, hemp grain producers have nowhere to go with their seed cake byproducts after crushing the grain for oil, hampering the growth of the industry. Tweet said there is reason to be optimistic and pointed to Pennsylvania, where Wenger Feeds was given special permission to market its Chiques Creek Hemp-Fed Eggs within the borders of the state. Hemp Feed Coalition https://hempfeedcoalition.org/ Kansas State Study on Hemp Feed https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/short-term-feeding-of-industrial-hemp-with-a-high-cannabidiolic-acid-cbda-content-increases-lying/pdf_4a0c6adc-70df-11ed-855c-a3c50f8c0b4c.html News Nuggets Hemp Can Be Crucial To Control Climate Change And It's Destined To Be Wildly Profitable, Win-Win? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hemp-crucial-control-climate-change-191728600.html Could hemp be a key tool in fight against climate change? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/24/could-hemp-be-a-key-tool-in-fight-against-climate-change Home Office hampering potential of Scotland's hemp farmers https://www.thenational.scot/news/23152035.home-office-hampering-potential-scotlands-hemp-farmers/ CBD for Arthritis in Seniors https://www.greenstate.com/explained/cbd-for-arthritis-in-seniors/ Hemp Innovations Foundation Funds Hemp Recycles Research Study https://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/article/hemp-innovations-foundation-awards-grant-hemp-recycles-research-project/ Where Does All the Cardboard Come From? I Had to Know. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/magazine/cardboard-international-paper.html Hempitecture awarded $500,000 in Grow-NY Food and Agriculture Competition https://www.localsyr.com/news/local-news/grow-ny-announces-winners-from-global-competition/ Thanks to our Sponsor IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

"During the Civil War, there was a battle in Lexington, Missouri. It was occurring around the Masonic College, right on the Missouri River. Soldiers found some hemp bales that were about to be shipped downstream. They used these hemp bales as a movable breastwork and pushed them up the hill to win the battle that became known as the Battle of the Hemp Bales." That's just one of the interesting tales told by hemp historian John Dvorak on this week's hemp podcast. Dvorak has been researching the history of hemp for over thirty years and has archived his work at Hempology.org, where you can find a trove of historical documents and images from American and world history. Dvorak uses his research to educate and advocate for sensible hemp and cannabis reform. He gives talks at universities around the country, sharing what he calls his "Cannabis Curriculum" with students, encouraging them to dig deeper into the history of the hemp plant. "I've been all around all sorts of different colleges talking to the students, letting them know that no matter what class they're taking, they can apply it to cannabis, hemp, marijuana or the drug war," he said. Dvorak said his research contradicts the standard narrative of why hemp was prohibited in the 1930s, that it wasn't a diabolical conspiracy by industry tycoons who saw hemp as a threat to their fortunes. "Hemp was not a threat to anybody in the 1930s. It was an afterthought. So that was one of the biggest surprises that I found doing my research is that it just wasn't a conspiracy," he said. Dvorak got his start researching hemp in the 1990s and credits a handful of hemp pioneers with laying the groundwork for the modern hemp industry, folks like Jack Herer, Don Wirtshafter, and Eric Steenstra. John Dvorak's Hempology http://hempology.org/ Hemp Hemp Hooray! Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJagE1r4EpE Ellora Caves https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/243/ The Battle of the Hemp Bales https://civilwaronthewesternborder.org/encyclopedia/first-battle-lexington-or-battle-hemp-bales Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ropewalk https://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=139 A Day in the Ropewalk at Mystic Seaport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LU_8-ILJRM News Nuggets Evacuation orders lifted after hemp plant fire in Grass Valley https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/hemp-plant-fire-in-grass-valley-oregon-burns-5-prompts-evacuations/ Cows That Ate Hemp Produced Milk With THC and CBD https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cows-that-ate-hemp-produced-milk-with-thc-and-cbd-180981131/ Food sector is chance for Colorado hemp to rebound, U.S. group says https://hemptoday.net/food-sector-is-chance-for-colorado-hemp-to-rebound-u-s-group-says/ Thanks to our Sponsors! Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

This week's Hemp Podcast is a recap of the Pennsylvania Hemp Summit that took place at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pa., November 14 -15. We hear opening remarks from Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding, highlights from the keynote speech by Ken Elliott from IND HEMP, as well as selected audio from a fiber and grain panel discussion and a cannabinoid panel discussion. Speakers include: Dr. Raj Kasula from Wenger Feeds, David Cook from Tuscarora Mills, Cameron McIntosh from Americhanvre Cast-Hemp, Lori Daytner from DON Services, Dr. Allison Justice from The Hemp Mine, Erica Stark from the National Hemp Association, Tom Trite from PA Options for Wellness, Steve Groff from Cedar Meadow Farms, and Justin DeAngelis from Rhino BioTech Thanks to our Sponsor: IND HEMP

Since the the 2014 Farm Bill established the legal framework for industrial hemp to return to the farm fields of the America, the commonwealth of Kentucky has been on the forefront. For much of that time, Ag Commission Ryan Quarles has led the department in charge of the hemp program. Quarles was elected ag commissioner in 2016 and is currently serving his second and final term. He said Kentucky was an early leader on hemp, "because we were the hemp state historically." "A lot of farm families have hemp backgrounds," he said. "You don't have to look very far to see the fingerprints of what used to be a big cash crop." Quarles is a ninth-generation Kentuckian and grew up on the farm where his family grew hemp in the 1940s to support the wart effort. Having a history of hemp cultivation was helpful, but there were still challenges in bringing the crop back, he said. "I think the No. 1 issue with hemp in the early days was just the education of what hemp is and what hemp is not," he said. "And so for a lot of us in the agriculture sphere, we knew that it was an industrial crop primarily used for its fiber and grain production." Something else that set Kentucky apart was how the state program was structured. "We knew if we're going to bring this crop back from the dead, we needed to have a legal framework that was user friendly, that involved law enforcement, but also allowed people who want to grow it or process it an opportunity to take that risk," he said. That legal framework set an example for other states to follow. "We've been replicated to most across the country because I think we were really the first state, in my opinion, that really got a legal framework that passed through our General Assembly, that our agriculture community adopted," Quarles said. As the industry navigates the post-CBD craze market, Quarles would like to see some definitive language from the Food and Drug Administration. "The No. 1 impediment of hemp in America is the FDA. The FDA needs to do their job and give us guidelines on what their view is on the potential regulatory aspects of CBD and other cannabinoids," he said. He said interest in fiber and grain production is growing in Kentucky, and he referred to two companies that are making great strides: HempWood and EcoFiber. How does he feel about a possible exemption to lift the burdensome regulations from fiber and grain growers? Listen and find out. Kentucky's Hemp Program https://www.kyagr.com/marketing/hemp-pilot.html Hemp Policy Item Tabled Amid Concerns at Meeting of U.S. Ag Regulators https://cannabiswire.com/2022/09/29/hemp-policy-item-tabled-amid-concerns-at-meeting-of-u-s-ag-regulators/ News Nuggets Who's Driving Climate Change? New Data Catalogs 72,000 Polluters and Counting https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/climate/climate-change-emissions-satellites.html Heartland Completes First Industrial Hemp Fiber LCA For Carbon Negative Plastic Additives https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/599999283/heartland-completes-first-industrial-hemp-fiber-lca-for-carbon-negative-plastic-additives National Industrial Hemp Council Urges FDA to Approve Hemp Seed for Animal Feed https://www.cannabisbusinesstimes.com/article/national-industrial-hemp-council-writes-letter-fda-urging-approval-hemp-seed-animal-feed/ Go to the Pennsylvania Hemp Summit, Nov. 14-15 https://pahempsummit.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors: Americhanvre Cast Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

Our guest on the podcast this week is Dr. Heather Grab, senior lecturer at Cornell University's School of Integrative Plant Science, where she focuses on hemp cultivation and processing. On Nov. 15, Grab will be participating in a free online event, The National Hemp Industry Needs Workshop, co-hosted by The Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University and USDA. The workshop will cover all aspects of hemp from genetics, sustainable ag practices, harvesting and processing to manufacturing, supply chains, economics, regulations, compliance testing and more with interactive sessions led by experts in the hemp space (many of whom will be familiar to regular listeners of this podcast). The workshop is free but you must register at hempindustryresearchneeds.org by Nov. 11. The goal of the workshop is to bring together many voices "to contribute to the synthesis of knowledge and to understand what the needs are and how we can work together as public institutions with private partners in order to build our knowledge and put that to use," Grab said. Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Science's hemp program has been a leading source of research in hemp genetics, pest and diseases, supply chain development and processing. Contact Dr. Heather Grab Cornell University profile page: https://cals.cornell.edu/heather-grab email: [email protected] insta: @heather.grab LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-grab/ Cornell's Hemp Program https://hemp.cals.cornell.edu/ Hemp Industry Research Needs Workshop https://hempindustryresearchneeds.org/ Dr. Grab's article about Retting for Lancaster Farming newspaper, April 25, 2025 https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/retting-hemp-fiber-from-the-stalk/article_d40a884d-83f4-53c8-a196-81b8ef346611.html News Nuggets Company commits $17.5 million to make Virginia hemp manufacturing center https://www.wavy.com/news/virginia/company-commits-17-5-million-to-make-virginia-hemp-manufacturing-center/ Hemp grain and fiber processing facility opening in Augusta, KS https://www.kwch.com/2022/11/02/hemp-grain-fiber-processing-facility-opens-augusta/ Pennsylvania Hemp Summit, November 14-15 https://pahempsummit.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's AgriSeeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/

This week on the hemp podcast, we talk to Shane Pritchard and Bill Brill from Hemp Processing Partners, a Colorado-based company focused on providing processing solutions for fiber, grain and floral hemp production around the world. Pritchard, chief engineer and co-founder of Hemp Processing Partners, said he sees how passionate people are about farming and genetics on one hand, and how other people are focused on what the hemp plant can be used for. "But," he said, "there's kind of a void in the equipment space there in the middle to get you from the great farming practices to the great uses of hemp." Hemp Processing Partners, he said, was created to fill that void and provide industrial knowledge. The company started out providing processing solutions for the floral side of the industry, but has expanded into fiber and grain processing. A vice president of business development at HPP, Brill said he sees the momentum building and soon the hemp industry will reach critical mass. "People around the world, entities around the world, governments around the world — both domestically and internationally — are inquiring about large scale solutions," he said. "Lately, there's been so much smoke, we know fire's coming." In this interview we talk about the company's goals and values, how it got started and where it's headed. The conversation also veers into interesting territory of ESG investing, carbon sequestration, changing the stigma around industrial hemp and much more. After the interview with Hemp Processing Partners, we check in with Deputy Ag Secretary Fred Strathmeyer from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to hear what's in store this year at the Pennsylvania Hemp Summit in Harrisburg Nov. 14-15. Hemp Processing Partnershttps://hempprocessingpartners.com/ Bill Brill's LinkedIn Page https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-brill-24143314/ Hemp Industry Research Needs Work Shop https://hempindustryresearchneeds.org/ Register for the Pennsylvania Hemp Summit https://pahempsummit.com/register Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Hemp Programhttps://www.agriculture.pa.gov/Plants_Land_Water/hemp/Pages/default.aspx Thanks to our Sponsors! New Holland Agriculturehttps://agriculture.newholland.com/nar/en-us IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

On this week's hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming talks to Kevin Schultz, co-founder and president of 357 Hemp Logistics, a company that specializes in transportation and supply chain management solutions for companies in the hemp industry. According to Schultz, there's a whole lot more to logistics and supply chain management than most people realize. "Logistics is sometimes a thankless job, you know, because everyone assumes it should go perfect," Schultz said. "And when it does, a lot of times behind the scenes, there was a lot going on to make that go smooth." He compared logistics to a referee in sports. "If you don't know the ref is there, they probably did a pretty good job. But if all you're talking about is the referee the next day, they probably blew a call." Since the founding of the company in 2019, one of the challenges with the logistics of shipping hemp, Schultz said, has been unreliable paperwork and a lack of transparency. Hemp companies are required to provide certificates of analysis, commonly called COAs, when shipping hemp products. "We do a lot of work trying to make sure that the COAs we're getting are not tampered with," Schultz said. "There's a lot of COAs I feel that when we see them have been edited, so we have to verify with the labs that that product is what the lab says it is." Schultz said he has seen fewer of these doctored certificates as the industry has matured, but it still happens. A solution to this problem, he said, would be a tracking and tracing system similar to the cannabis industry with full seed-to-sale transparency. "And boy, that would make our life so much easier," he said. 357 Hemp Logistics was also recently named as a partner in a USDA-funded Climate Smart Commodities project, spearheaded by Iconoclast Industries, that will receive a $15 million grant to provide open-access industrial fiber and grain supply chain data in a digital marketplace. 357 Hemp Logistics https://357company.com/ News Nuggets Hemp Feed Workshop, October 26-27 https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/hempfeedworkshop/registration/ Rodale Institute Celebrates 75th Anniversary https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/news/rodale-institute-celebrates-75-years-of-organic-education-and-research/article_7404139c-442c-11ed-8c63-f3df53c016df.html Register for the PA Hemp Summithttps://pahempsummit.com/register Apply for a Hemp Summit Scholarship https://pasa.tfaforms.net/1173 Thanks to our generous sponsors Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/

Image if you had a device to scan your hemp to determine not only the sex of your plants, but CBD and THC content too. If this sounds like a game changer to you, then be prepared for the game to change. New Orleans-based Mariposa Technology's PAMAP does just that. It will not only sex your plants, but can give you accurate information on your cannabinoid levels, as well as other useful data for your growing operation. PAMAP is short for "predictive analytical modeling application for plants" and was designed by Mariposa Technology to help with some of the common pain points in floral hemp production: sexing and testing. This week on the Hemp Podcast, we talk to Mariposa Technology co-founder and CEO John Roberts and COO Michael Dalle Molle, who explain the new technology. PAMAP is a handheld device that uses an agilent resolve spectrometer that shoots a laser to excite the molecules in a hemp plant, creating a molecular fingerprint. "And when you have that structural knowledge of the living plant," Roberts said, "then you can make all types of determinations about its health and other characteristics and chemical makeup." The device has implications for other ag sectors beyond the cannabis plant, but hemp was a logical place for the company to start. "We really wanted to focus on hemp because we see the pain points in the hemp industry as being the most significant and, to be quite honest, the most easily fixed by our device," Dalle Molle said. Mariposa Technology https://mariposatechnology.com/ Molecules article referenced in interview: Non-Invasive and Confirmatory Differentiation of Hermaphrodite from Both Male and Female Cannabis Plants Using a Hand-Held Raman Spectrometer https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/27/15/4978 News Nuggets Blue-Ribbon Day for Hemp at Unionville Fair https://www.lancasterfarming.com/country-life/fairs-and-shows/blue-ribbon-day-for-hemp-at-unionville-fair/article_17bfc954-0b1b-54f4-957e-a83f6fc9e4d8.html Hemp-Alternative https://hemp-alternative.com/ Man claims Lexington store sold him delta-8 instead of CBD causing him to crash into bus https://www.wkyt.com/2022/10/05/man-claims-lexington-store-sold-him-delta-8-instead-cbd-causing-him-crash-into-bus/ Investigators believe they know cause of metro-east industrial park fire, chief sayshttps://www.bnd.com/news/local/article266422626.html Pennsylvania Hemp Summit https://pahempsummit.com/ Thanks to our sponsor: https://indhemp.com/

Could industrial hemp be a useful feedstock for anaerobic digesters to produce renewable natural gas? According to Nick Walters, managing partner at National Hemp Growers Cooperative, the answer is a resounding yes. Walters shared with Lancaster Farming the executive summary of a white paper to be released next week that shows that hemp not only can compete with other energy crops, but that it surpasses other crops in its input-output ratio. That means hemp requires fewer inputs than traditional biofuel crops like corn and beets but produces a higher-energy fuel than them. Walters said hemp has the potential to produce 208 million Btu per acre, which is the equivalent of 60,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to run a clothes dryer 24 hours a day for 27 months, based on research by his team, which is led by agronomist David Cornett and Eberhard Lucke, CEO of Lucke Consulting Technology Services. Apart from its energy potential, hemp grown regeneratively (with no-till, cover crops etc.) can pull carbon from the atmosphere and lock that carbon into the soil, thereby being a method for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation. Hemp is also an attractive energy source, Walters said, because it doesn't "enter the food versus fuel conversation. You are squarely in the food versus fuel conversation as it relates to fodder beets, because those are getting fed primarily to livestock." As to why the co-op is publishing this study, Walters says it's part of its "very unique business model that enables our members and our investors to be involved in multiple value-added processing facilities for the various uses of hemp all throughout the country. And we are focused on building wealth for our members through regenerative agriculture and sustainable development." Plus, we talk to Lori Daytner from DON Services in New Castle, Pennsylvania, where work has been completed on the Project PA Hemp Home. She gives us an update on the project, including how they turned locally hemp grown into HempWood flooring. National Hemp Growers Coop https://nationalhempcoop.us/ DON Services https://www.doninc.org/ DON Processing https://processing.doninc.net/ Project PA Hemp Home https://healthymaterialslab.org/projects/pa-hemp-home Register for the Pennsylvania Hemp Summit https://pahempsummit.com/ Thanks to our Sponsors IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/

What do HempWood in Murray, Kentucky, and Cedar Meadow Farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, have in common? Both are hemp businesses involved in projects selected by USDA to receive funding in the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. Does this mean that Cedar Meadow Farm and HempWood each get a big bag of money from the government? Nope, that's not how it works, but on this week's podcast we dig in and try to find out what it all means. First, Greg Wilson, founder of HempWood, talks about his connection to the Lincoln University project that was awarded $5 million in the program to scale the hemp supply chain as a carbon negative feedstock for fiber and fuel. Wilson said he is especially enthusiastic about the educational aspects of the project. "If more people know how to grow hemp and it de-risks the situation, it will help our supply chain for making building materials," he said. HempWood produces flooring made from hemp stalks held together by a soy-based glue in a carbon-negative facility in Murray, Kentucky. "It's the only carbon negative flooring that's made in America that is certified by the USDA as well as three nonpartisan certifying bodies for our lifecycle analysis and environmental product declaration that have just been formally published by ASTM last month," Wilson said. Then, we check in with Lancaster County hemp farmer and cover crop expert Steve Groff, whose Cedar Meadow Farm is a partner in a project awarded $15 million to develop the fiber and grain sectors of the industry. Groff said he is excited about the project because its goals match what he's doing on his farm. "Growing all kinds of hemp — CBD, fiber and grain — and to do that in a way that's, well, climate-smart," he said. HempWood https://hempwood.com/ Cedar Meadow Farm https://cedarmeadow.farm/ Check out Lancaster Farming's Hemp Special Section https://lancasterfarming-pa.newsmemory.com/?special=Hemp Lancaster Farming Visits HempWood in Murray, KY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uua964Y6BbA What is HempWood in 60 Seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqIZZqZx43Q Thanks to our Sponsors: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ Mpactful Ventures https://www.mpactfulventures.org/

Carrfields, one of the leading agricultural companies in New Zealand, has operations spanning Kiwi agriculture, from machinery to seed production and distribution, irrigation, precision ag technology and everything in between. Craig Carr, group managing director and guest on this week's Hemp Podcast, said his father started the business over 40 years ago with a handful of straw contracts in the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand. Moving into machinery service and seed production in the 1990s, the business really took off in the 2000s when the Kiwi dairy industry went through a period of growth. "It was a big time in New Zealand of change, of farming. Dairy was really starting to grow," he said. "And with that our business grew also." This growth enabled Carrfields to acquire several other ag businesses, making them a major player in New Zealand agriculture. Carrfields has been working in the hemp sector for over 20 years, with an early focus on oil seed production and combine harvesters, and has since been working with fiber hemp for industrial uses. Carr attended the Montana Hemp Summit in August and was impressed with the level of cooperation and collaboration among the U.S. hemp industry in the grain and fiber sectors. "What probably stood out to me the most was the willingness of IND HEMP and others to actually work together for the benefit of the industry," he said. "Even though we're way down here in New Zealand, there's a huge opportunity for us to share learnings and to actually share information around what has worked and what hasn't worked, because when you're dealing with a product like hemp — and particularly hemp fiber — you know, you're very reliant, as most people will note, on Mother Nature." Carr said the biggest challenge the industry faces, in New Zealand and abroad, is making it profitable for producers. "Because if the crop is not sustainably profitable, then we are not going to have that supply base in the future," he said. "We need to ensure that all of the financial metrics go back and start with the farmer." Carrfields https://www.carrfields.co.nz/ New Zealand Natural Fibers https://nznaturalfibres.co.nz/ Connect with Carrfields on Social Media Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarrfieldsNZ & https://www.facebook.com/contactNZNF Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carrfieldsnz/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/carrfields-nz/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/nz-natural-fibres Hemp News Nuggets Police Raid German Hemp Farm https://businesscann.com/european-round-up-police-raid-german-hemp-farm-tilray-in-talks-with-cannabis-czar-new-european-thc-levels-approved-et-al/ Regulations for the Production of Industrial Hemp are Established in Costa Rica https://thecostaricanews.com/regulations-for-the-production-of-industrial-hemp-are-established-in-costa-rica/ Why Hemp Is Entering the Mainstream and Adding Value to Business https://www.rollingstone.com/culture-council/articles/why-hemp-is-entering-mainstream-and-adding-value-to-business-1234588120/ National Hemp Growers Coop partners with Troy University Manufacturing Sciences https://www.wtvy.com/2022/09/08/national-hemp-growers-partner-with-troy-university-manufacturing-sciences/ National Hemp Growers Cooperative https://nationalhempcoop.us/ Billionaire No More: Patagonia Founder Gives Away the Company https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html Climate Projects Tied to Pennsylvania Get $900 Million https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/conservation/climate-projects-tied-to-pennsylvania-get-900-million/article_dd2cf622-3473-11ed-a221-179b31d68ee2.html Climate-Smart Commodities Grant Recipients https://www.usda.gov/climate-solutions/climate-smart-commodities/projects Thanks to our Sponsors Americhanvre Cast-Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ All Walks Hemp Pet Products https://allwalkspet.com/