While the majority of hemp farmers in the U.S. have opted to grow varieties intended for CBD extraction, businesses looking to make hardwoods from hemp have come up and are opening more avenues for farmers who are looking to diversify from the traditional crops that they have been growing.
Hemp has been touted as a plant from which more than 50,000 products can be made. However, other products outside CBD haven’t been given adequate attention, so these segments of the industry have been slow in growing.
HempWood, a company based in Kentucky opened a 15,600 square foot facility last month for the purpose of making hemp planks that would be excellent wood substitutes. These pressed boards have been documented to be denser than oak by 20 percent. This means that in just six months, the time hemp takes to mature, one can get a product that is better than what one would get from an oak tree that takes 200 years to grow.
According to John Crye, the director of sales and marketing at Fibonacci LLC (the parent company of HempWood), hardwood panels are made using a technology that was originally invented in the bamboo industry. These panels have a variety of applications in the furniture, flooring and other related projects.
Crye added that their company is at the forefront of the fiber segment of the hemp industry and he wasn’t sure about the number of other buyers of hemp fiber besides their company.
The hemp hardwood panels are made by harvesting fiber hemp stalks that usually grow to about six feet high. These stalks are then mixed with a resin before being cold-pressed in order to produce a wood product with a distinctive grain pattern.
The variety of hemp grown for fiber differs in appearance from the bushy varieties that are grown for CBD extraction, Crye explains. All these plants belong to the cannabis family, including the THC-rich marijuana plant.
Currently, Fibonacci employs eight people at the hemp hardwood factory, but they intend to take on two additional employees each month until they reach their target of 50 employees. The company has been granted employee-based tax incentives worth $300,000 by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA). Fibonacci has so far sunk $5.6 million into its hemp hardwood project.
Fibonacci plans to boost the local economy by only using industrial hemp that is grown within 100 miles from its factory. To this end, the company has so far contracted farmers in Western Kentucky to grow fiber hemp on 1,300 acres.
Experts believe it would be good for industry players like VPR Brands LP (OTCQB: VPRB) and Wildflower Brands Inc. (CSE: SUN) (OTCQB: WLDFF) to start encouraging farmers to grow different varieties of hemp for the manufacture of different products so that they hedge against a drop in the price of CBD.
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