The Largest Hemp Processing Facility in the US Opens in Colorado

Colorado City in Southern Colorado will soon be host to the largest hemp processing facility in the U.S. when a facility set up by Paragon Processing starts operating.

The 250,000 square foot facility was opened on Wednesday last week and the company says that they hope to process close to 50 million pounds of hemp each year. Additionally, the company revealed that its processing facility will create 250 jobs and most of them will be within Colorado City whose total population doesn’t exceed 2,500 people.

Co-President Matt Evans says that this processing facility will make a number of hemp extracts using distillation and isolation techniques. About one million pounds of hemp will be processed each month and the number will grow to two million pounds a month by the end of this year’s hemp harvest season.

In his statement, Evans added that the 2018 Farm Bill led to a surge in demand for hemp and its products, especially CBD. The processing facility in Colorado City will respond to that demand since it is now legal to manufacture and engage in interstate commerce involving hemp or its products.

It should be noted that Colorado legalized industrial hemp back in 2012 when the voters in the state supported ending marijuana prohibition. The federal government only woke up to the value of industrial hemp last year, so Colorado has had a head start of six years in this industry.

For long, Colorado was the national leader in the production of hemp but it has since slipped though it remains in the top three.

Advocates of the hemp industry have been campaigning to see more processing and testing facilities in the state, and the recently opened facility addresses those two calls.

The hemp industry has given rural agricultural areas an opportunity to prosper again as this crop is currently on high demand and giving farmers a decent return on their investment. Pueblo County in the south of the state is an example of the rural areas that have benefited from this industry.

Governor Jared Polis has been at the forefront of championing the cause of the hemp industry in Colorado and he recently told an industry conference that he would like to see a 20 percent increase in the 62,000 acres currently devoted to hemp cultivation.

It is widely believed that industry actors like Canopy Rivers Inc. (TSX.V: RIV) (OTC: CNPOF) and Earth Science Tech Inc. (OTCQB: ETST) see the strides made by Colorado’s hemp industry and project how far the entire country can go if the leadership is proactive.

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