{"id":4313,"date":"2015-06-23T08:02:31","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T08:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=3467"},"modified":"2015-06-23T08:02:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T08:02:31","slug":"colorado-hemp-grows-from-novelty-to-industry-with-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorado-hemp-grows-from-novelty-to-industry-with-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Hemp Grows From Novelty To Industry With Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorado-hemp-grows-from-novelty-to-industry-with-potential\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>The hype over hemp that erupted last year during Colorado&#8217;s first sensational flirtations with the marijuana look-alike is now starting to live up to expectations. A handful of growers in 2014 planted and harvested small-scale crops that attracted large-scale attention under hemp&#8217;s newly legal status.<\/p>\n<p>This year, hype is being replaced with indicators of hemp&#8217;s industrial potential as seen in farm fields, factories, retail outlets and university laboratories. Hemp and its byproducts have a wide range of uses in nutrition, clothing, building materials, cosmetics and health.<\/p>\n<p>The sector still is too tiny to rate even an asterisk in most conventional measures such as crop value and retail sales in Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>Hemp also faces lingering perceptual problems. There&#8217;s confusion from its visual similarity to marijuana, even though hemp contains little or no THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. The federal government sees no distinction; it considers both illegal under the Controlled Substances Act.<\/p>\n<p>Despite perceptions and immature economic status, advocates project a steep growth curve for the industry.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado recently adopted a broader dimension when the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Hemp Association changed its name to the National Hemp Association in a move to represent the industry nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hemp is currently a $620 million industry in the U.S.,&#8221; said Zev Paiss, executive director of the group. &#8220;Hemp can create tens of thousands of American jobs if businesses can grow, process and source their hemp in the U.S.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On a 132-acre farm near the banks of the Arkansas River east of Pueblo, CBDRx president Alexis Korybut has 50,000 young hemp plants in containers ready to be placed in the ground.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the nation&#8217;s largest farm, according to Korybut, for growing hemp specially bred with high levels of cannabinoids, substances purported to have healing properties for conditions including cancer and seizures.<\/p>\n<p>Korybut and his partners have invested $5 million in the Pueblo farm and a Longmont research and development facility used for extracting and testing CBD, the most marketable of hemp&#8217;s several varieties of cannabinoids.<\/p>\n<p>In coming weeks, Korybut expects to announce plans for a major processing plant in Pueblo. The company now employs 30, a number that he projects will double by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Korybut said his strategy is &#8220;to help make Pueblo a center of activity&#8221; for hemp growing and processing.<\/p>\n<p>Like many players in the industry, CBDRx is developing infrastructure without a firm handle on who its customers will be.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been reluctant to pull the trigger on customer contracts,&#8221; he said. &#8220;For serious customers, they need to make sure that we have quality, quantity and consistency.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dani Billings is Colorado&#8217;s Renaissance woman in hemp.<\/p>\n<p>From growing to processing to retailing \u2014 throw in a little consulting, too, for good measure \u2014 Billings is all in.<\/p>\n<p>She and her father Bill Billings last year grew one of Colorado&#8217;s first licensed hemp crops on a 2.5-acre former alfalfa field near Sterling.<\/p>\n<p>This year, the plans have blossomed.<\/p>\n<p>The Billingses this year are planting 35 acres and will grow hemp indoors in a series of greenhouses.<\/p>\n<p>Dani Billings has launched a series of hemp-infused scrubs and salves that sell online for $20 to $38. She has struck a deal with Whole Foods to carry the products in a Longmont store under construction.<\/p>\n<p>Billings also plans to sell hemp-based nutritional products and is eyeing the purchase of a machine to convert hemp stalks into textiles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s such a large market, but everything is being imported from places like Canada and Australia,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We need to develop the market here at home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Colorado&#8217;s top regulator has some advice for industry aspirants.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Quit thinking of yourself as special. As soon as you consider yourself mainstream, then that&#8217;s the start of an industry,&#8221; said Duane Sinning, manager of the hemp program at the Colorado Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>Sinning administers the state&#8217;s licensing process for hemp growers, but his unofficial job description requires him to be a sounding board, reality checker and adviser.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s neither an advocate nor a naysayer for an upstart agricultural sector that grapples with the disconnect between state legality and federal illegality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a plant. I don&#8217;t get tied up in the politics of it,&#8221; said Sinning, who previously worked at seed company Benary.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado growers last year registered to plant 1,811 acres, though only an estimated 200 acres were harvested. Sinning said some registered just for the novelty of having a license.<\/p>\n<p>But under Sinning&#8217;s watch \u2014 he joined the department last June \u2014 growers have registered this year for 2,830 acres outdoors and 467,000 square feet in indoor facilities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s still a niche crop,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but there is potential.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A hemp plant&#8217;s seeds, flowers and leaves hog all the glory for conversion into an array of trendy cosmetics, food additives and nutraceuticals.<\/p>\n<p>What remains are the decidedly unglamorous stalks.<\/p>\n<p>But stalks, too, will have their day under a couple of initiatives by Colorado entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>Fort Lupton-based PureVision Technology Inc. began testing hemp&#8217;s industrial uses with 100 stalks from the 2014 harvest donated by Jim Brammer, a partner with Dani and Bill Billings in the Sterling hemp farm.<\/p>\n<p>PureVision co-owner Ed Lehrburger said the initial tests successfully converted stalks to sugars and ethanol. Encouraged by the achievement, the company created a subsidiary called PureHemp Technology LLC to process hemp into paper products, sweeteners, plastics and packaging materials.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The average consumer has no idea about the versatility of industrial hemp plants (or) about their healing and nutraceutical qualities,&#8221; Lehrburger said in a recent article published in The Cannabist.<\/p>\n<p>Baca County hemp farmer Ryan Loflin recently formed a partnership with an Oklahoma company to create insulation by mixing shredded hemp stalks with recycled newspapers and cardboard.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This could really help get the industry going,&#8221; Loflin said. &#8220;Until now, there really hasn&#8217;t been an industrial infrastructure for hemp in Colorado.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Before Congress passed a new farm bill in 2014, major universities wouldn&#8217;t even talk about hemp, much less study it, for fear of losing federal contracts and funding.<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s a burgeoning field of research at institutions including Colorado State University and University of Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Sievers, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at CU, is investigating hemp at the Boulder campus and in a private enterprise.<\/p>\n<p>The university research focuses on testing the properties and efficacy of highly refined varieties of cannabinoids. Outside of CU, Sievers is chief scientist at Colorado Can LLC, a firm studying alternative delivery mechanisms for cannabinoids, such as inhalers and wafers that absorb directly into the bloodstream.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, CSU College of Agriculture professor John McKay is conducting on-campus tests of hemp varieties while also working at New West Genetics, a firm developing seed strains that could be sold in commercial quantities to farmers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll predict,&#8221; Sievers said, &#8220;that 10 years from now, hemp will be one of the most important industries in Colorado.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/gallery\/data\/1412\/14894.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>News Moderator: Jacob Redmond <a href=\"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">420 MAGAZINE \u00ae<\/a><br \/>\nFull Article: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/business\/ci_28304730\/colorado-hemp-grows-from-novelty-industry-potential\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado hemp grows from novelty to industry with potential &#8211; The Denver Post<\/a><br \/>\nAuthor: Steve Raabe<br \/>\nContact: <a href=\"mailto:sraabe@denverpost.com\">sraabe@denverpost.com<\/a><br \/>\nPhoto Credit: Brent Lewis, The Denver Post<br \/>\nWebsite: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Colorado Breaking News, Sports, Weather, Traffic, Jobs &#8211; The Denver Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hype over hemp that erupted last year during Colorado&#8217;s first sensational flirtations with the marijuana look-alike is now starting&#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/2015\/06\/colorado-hemp-grows-from-novelty-to-industry-with-potential\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1607,9,1,3],"tags":[4175],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}