This past weekend hundreds of Hemp farmers, entrepreneurs, and aspiring visionaries gathered at the Westin Hotel in Charlotte to discuss the future of our industry. Here are 3 key takeaways from the conference:

1. Regulation is Coming

The FDA and USDA, two of the Federal agencies who possess the most authority over Hemp, have so far taken a “wait and see” approach to regulating the industry. Despite a few memos and the occasional warning letter from the FDA, no serious attempts have been made to enforce or clarify Federal standards relating to Hemp & CBD. That is gearing up to change.

The USDA’s Interim rules on Hemp - released early last week - have alarmed farmers all over the country with fears over the new testing standards, which legal advocates point out would disqualify the vast majority of CBD-rich Hemp from being processed into a legal product. In addition to fears over testing, many in the Hemp industry feel that these new rules are actually a step backwards for the Hemp industry, creating arbitrary and counterproductive rules while ignoring the real issues faced by the industry. According to Frank Robison, founder of Robison Law Group and Hemp industry pioneer, “something’s wrong when the DEA is mentioned 42 times and banking is mentioned twice”.

It's not entirely bad news, however. The new rules can still be amended and the USDA is currently asking for comments and input from Hemp industry stakeholders. In addition, many people in the industry see regulation as a necessary and beneficial way to improve the industry. Steve Bevan, President of Gencanna Global, added that “we might not like all of the regulations coming our way, but ultimately it will help stabilize the industry”.





2. The Future is Fiber

The massive oversupply of CBD currently facing the market means that farmers will have to find other ways to make money off of Hemp. As the global supply chain for Hemp fiber and biomass becomes more robust, opportunities are opening up for products that weren’t previously viable to gain a following in the marketplace. While the current lack of processing infrastructure and multi-purpose cultivars both pose great challenges to the fiber market, many in the industry see Hemp’s future as a large-scale general-purpose crop as inevitable.

According to Hemp Roundtable President and Director of CV Sciences Josh Hendrix, that means switching from small scale, CBD-focused cultivation models to more a general, multi-purpose, agricultural model. Hendrix stated “[right now] we produce Hemp in a way that is inefficient. Soon, the rest of the world is going to be producing [Hemp] just like tobacco or soy in no time...so, the days of premium Hemp are probably over. Multi-purpose crops are the future of the Hemp industry”.





3. A Call for Unity

As the Hemp industry continues its rapid expansion we must be cognizant of outside threats. While Hemp was still categorized as a schedule I narcotic - ludicrous as that was - the industry was insulated against large, established corporations entering the market and using their superior size to drive out small actors. Now that Hemp has become Federally legal, that insulation is quickly deteriorating. Steve Bevan, the previously quoted President of Gencanna Global, stated that “the big CPG companies aren’t involved yet, but they are interested.''

For many Hemp industry hopefuls, one of the most exciting things about Hemp is the possibility of creating a new kind of industry - a net positive one, where the right thing to do for the planet and the profitable thing to do for one’s business are one and the same. To these people, the idea of large, public corporations coming in and dominating what has, up until now, been almost entirely a grassroots effort to create a sustainable future is untenable.

The best defense against such a scenario is maintaining an organized and unified community of Hemp farmers, processors, entrepreneurs, and activists. In short, a large theme of HIACon 2019 was a call for unity, and for the establishment of an industry-wide set of values and goals that can help bring people together in order to realize the Hemp industry immense potential - both economic, environmental, and cultural.



