USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue addresses the nation’s state agriculture departments on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020 (Photo courtesy USDA) Federal agriculture officials are dropping the requirement that all THC testing on hemp crops must be performed at laboratories registered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), according to industry sources. And food and drug regulators say […]
First-time hemp farmers learned hard lessons about the cost of doing business in 2019, when many grew the crop on speculation, without harvest plans or contracts in place. Promised they could make upwards of $50,000 per acre, farmers looking for a reprieve from low crop prices and foreign tariffs rushed into planting and growing the […]
Virginia lawmakers have sent Gov. Ralph Northam a proposal allowing people 21 and older to smoke hemp. The bill, sponsored by Republican Delegate Danny Marshall, passed both chambers of the Legislature on Monday. Growing and cultivating hemp is legal under federal law, and farmers in Marshall’s district have embraced the new crop. But the Danville […]
Colorado CBD maker Veritas Farms hired a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official to help the company research and develop new products. Daniel Connors was an analytical chemist for the FDA, where he worked to maintain the safety of the nation’s food and medical supply, Veritas said in a news release Tuesday. His work at […]
Georgia-Pacific, a giant in the paper-manufacturing industry, is partnering with a Canadian firm that uses hemp-based fibers for a variety of nonwoven products. Victoria, British Columbia-based Bast Fibre Technologies announced the agreement with Georgia-Pacific on Tuesday. BFT makes baby wipes and other personal-care fiber products. The company said the agreement involves a suite of patents for […]
Green Growth Brands, an Ohio-based cannabis retailer that owns both marijuana dispensaries and the nation’s largest chain of CBD retail locations in mall kiosks, reported $21.2 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2019, up more than 600% from the same period in 2018. The company also announced plans to sell its CBD business […]
Two companies that provide data and analytics to the hemp industry — New Leaf Data Services and PanXchange — are in a trademark dispute over the phrase “hemp benchmarks.” New Leaf sued PanXchange earlier this month in federal court in Connecticut, claiming trademark infringement of its “Hemp Benchmarks” service. PanXchange, which is based in Denver, offers […]
A Wisconsin-based hemp grower is suing an Illinois farm it hired to dry 84,000 pounds of the crop, only to have most of the product burn during the drying process, a federal lawsuit alleges. Oconomowoc-based Lake County Growers said it hired Winslow, Illinois-based Moest Holdings in October to dry the hemp with an industrial dryer. […]
(This is an abridged version of a feature that appears in the February issue of Marijuana Business Magazine.) Vertically integrated cannabis producer Stem Holdings is dedicated to organic production and high–quality standards—attributes the company plans to apply to its new ventures in the hemp industry. Ellen Deutsch, Stem Holdings’ executive vice president and chief operating officer, says that that hemp and CBD companies must […]
Welcome to the latest edition of NORML’s Weekly Legislative Roundup!
