Hemp is carving out an immense market for itself despite being legal for only a year in the U.S. The cash crop had been outlawed for decades before the Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp and its extracts. Pretty soon, the market for hemp was worth millions, and experts posit that it could hit $20 billion by 2026.
In many ways, the sector’s unprecedented growth turned out to be its biggest weakness. Since there’s barely any information on hemp out there, a lot of people are playing it by ear, trying to learn on the go. This has resulted in a sector that barely has any standardization, and a new task force commissioned by the Hemp Industries Association (HIA) is looking to change that.
The task force will focus on finding out how different companies, organizations and government agencies in the U.S. and internationally are measuring and analyzing hemp samples for flower, fiber, food and other uses.
“Field sampling, sample preparation, and analytical testing methods have been identified in many different forms over the years, yet there are still many discrepancies in the details that are causing confusion,” says HIA President Joy Beckerman during last year’s annual meeting.
For instance, the USDA released its interim final rule on hemp in October, but the rule sets forth procedures that many have argued are unreasonable. On top of that, practices put in place by different state agriculture departments differ from each other and from those used in other countries.
Mark Privitera, a hemp farmer, engineer, and CEO of PreProcess, a San Francisco-based process development and engineering firm concurs, saying that reliable and repeatable data is crucial to driving legal, industrial and commercial operations.
The task force won’t just focus on CBD, but on most parts of hemp that have human applications. “CBD is a big deal right now, but it’s not the only thing. My company is trying to make carbon for hemp batteries,” says Privitera.
He says that the task force will be made up of scientists such as analytical chemists and university researchers in the hemp industry. “There are three or four big processors that have their own books of methods, and I need quality control directors and vice presidents for those companies to come into the game,” he says.
This isn’t the first time effort has been made to establish a standard for sampling and testing hemp. Last April, ASTM International, an organization that develops Industrial standards, initiated an effort to establish a set of protocols for sampling hemp.
Experts say the work of this task force is a welcome development in the eyes of sector players like Neutra Corp. (OTC: NTRR) and No Borders Inc. (OTC: NBDR) since it will help to bring the industry to maturity.
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