One of the largest cannabis companies in the world made a significant move into the U.S. hemp industry Monday by breaking ground on a new industrial park for hemp processing in New York.
Canadian cannabis pioneer Canopy Growth Corp., based in Smith Falls, Ontario, unveiled plans for its new $150 million Hemp Industrial Park in Kirkwood on a 48-acre property about 5 miles north of the Pennsylvania border.
The business may create more than 400 jobs, reported area radio station WSKG.
“This will really become our hub on the East Coast of the United States to do this manufacturing and really scale the business,” Canopy Growth president Rade Kovacevic said during the event.
U.S Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who worked with Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, to decriminalize hemp and make it a legal crop on the federal level, attended the event and cut the ceremonial ribbon for the 308,000-square-foot facility.
Schumer joined Kovacevic and Canopy Growth Chief Advocacy Officer Hilary Black, as well as several state dignitaries.
The new industrial park, set to open this fall, is Canopy Growth’s first move into the hemp sector and first official step into the U.S., with plans to extract and process hemp into CBD oils, topicals and consumables.
The company has stated it does not plan to grow hemp in New York, instead making agreements with farmers to supply the processing plant, with priority given to the state’s farmers. Canopy said in a tweet Monday it expects its New York operations will include approximately 2,000 acres of hemp.
In June, the company said it will open hemp processing facilities in seven U.S. states within the next year.
Canopy Growth trades on the New York Stock Exchange as CGC.
