Banks also are reluctant to lend to businesses that may appear to be linked to marijuana, curbing prospects for processing expansion, Cockroft said.

Congress legalized industrial hemp and CBD in 2018, clearing the way for expanded planting, and in January Illinois joins a growing list of states that have legalized recreational marijuana use. Growers seeded 142,691 acres this year, according to Department of Agriculture data on Sept. 12. With some farmers probably withholding data from to the government, total acres may reach 230,000, according to the advocacy group Vote Hemp.

“The market has developed and matured and expanded at such a rapid rate that the federal government is playing catch up,” said Beau Whitney, an economist at Whitney Economics, which tracks the cannabis industry.

David Diekhoff, a farmer in Delavan, Illinois, planted one of his 1,500 acres (607 hectares) with hemp among the soybeans and corn. His grandfather grew hemp to make rope during World War II, and his son is an executive vice president at the marijuana cultivator Revolution Enterprises.

He plans to cut the flowers from the hemp plants for use in CBD and is still looking for a buyer before the harvest at the end of the month.

“I wanted to get in on the ground floor,” Diekhoff said in a telephone interview. “It’s a new crop.”

A July survey by Whitney Economics found that 65% of hemp farmers failed to find a crop buyer. Since then, many have obtained contracts from companies that may face a cash crunch.

Prices for some CBD components have fallen on the Denver-based price platform PanXchange, slumping before an expected expansion in supplies. “We’re definitely seeing some downward pressure on refined products over the last few months,” RJ Hopp, the director of hemp markets at PanXchange.