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The post Tasmanian hemp farmers see rapid growth in coming years was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Tasmanian hemp fields could rapidly expand to 8,000 hectares (about 20,000 acres) over the next few years, stakeholders say, as long-awaited changes to Australian legislation governing the use of hemp seed are now in place.

This year around 1,600 ha of hemp is being grown in Tasmania, with a farm gate value of AU $4.5 million.

Seed in demand

Demand for hemp seed is skyrocketing and with an ideal climate, access to water and experienced growers, the state is well placed to take advantage of the booming market, Tasmanian Hemp Association (THA) president Tim Schmidt said.

“The companies operating here have got orders we need to fill, otherwise there’s a risk they could be filled by imported seed,” Schmidt said. “There’s an opportunity here for hemp to become a really important crop. The key thing we’re looking for is growers to give is a go and then keep growing it year after year.”

More than one year after Peru legalized medical cannabis, the South American country published a regulatory decree providing clarity about how the program will work, including possible cultivation and manufacture of high-THC cannabis by private companies. Details on the breadth of commercial activity that will be allowed remain vague, however. The decree, published Saturday, estimates that […]

Peru lays groundwork for commercial medical cannabis production, sales is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post Government ‘rigidity’ is barrier in Serbia, but fields expand was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

While the Serbian government is supporting hemp farmers with subsidies for things like fertilizer and fuel, a lack of flexibility on other key considerations is holding up development, said Igor Bogdanovic, a leading Serbian hemp figure and President at Konoopa, a fiber processor and technology developer.

“The government itself is very rigid in regulating CBD and completely deaf to the tremendous evidence of the medicinal use of both CBD and THC,” Bogdanovic told HempToday.

Nonetheless, Bogdanovic said a few Canadian companies have imported or are about to import CO2 extraction technology, marking a shift in focus for hemp in Serbia.

GW Pharmaceuticals, the British maker of epileptic seizure-control medication Epidiolex, said it was not aware of any supply issues related to the cannabis-derived drug after a tweet from a patient’s father complained he could not source the medicine. GW’s stock was down more than 3% on Wednesday on the Nasdaq after the tweet from San […]

GW Pharma denies supply issues with marijuana-based drug Epidiolex after stock falls is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post Tilray scoops up Manitoba Harvest, plans line of CBD products was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Canadian cannabis giant Tilray Inc. has has agreed to acquire hemp food maker Manitoba Harvest for $277.5 million in cash and stock, Tilray announced. The deal could reach more than $419 million based on incentives.

Nanaimo, British Columbia-based Tilray said it looks to leverage Manitoba Harvest’s production capacity and its distribution system throughout 16,000 U.S. retail outlets that include major chains Costco, Wal-Mart, and Whole Foods.

Manitoba Harvest, founded in 1998, produces hemp nuts, oil and granola. Tilray said it plans to expand into CBD-infused products such as tinctures, sprays and soft-gels where those products are permissible in the USA.

The post Tilray scoops up Manitoba Harvest, plans line of CBD products was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Cannabis giant Tilray is expanding into the natural foods category with the acquisition of hemp foods company Manitoba Harvest for 419 million Canadian dollars ($319 million) in cash and stock in an effort to capitalize on cannabidiol-infused products in North America. The acquisition will accelerate British Columbia-based Tilray’s expansion into the U.S. and Canadian markets […]

Tilray to accelerate expansion into CBD with Manitoba Harvest acquisition is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post Indian textile startup has aggressive growth plans was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Indian startup Canva Fibre Labs LLP (CFL) expects to scale up this year, pushing beyond its current capacity of one ton of production daily, say the company’s founders.

“We intend to take these textiles to mainstream brands and thus are actively solving problems like how the textile feels without compromising on functional advantages, and its processability on the current infrastructure of textile like spinning and weaving,” said Shikha Shah, one of CFL’s two founders.

CFL says it has developed an indigenous proprietary technique for processing of agricultural waste from hemp plants, with output that has compatibility with current textile infrastructure. The system offers 100% green processing in which no hazardous chemicals are used to process the fiber.

The opportunity

The company sees an opportunity in the need for processing technology as well as the imbalance between price and quality when it comes to hemp textiles, said Shreyans Kokra, who co-founded the company with Shah when the two were classmates at Babson College in the USA.

The post U.S. jumps to No. 3 among top hemp growing nations was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

The USA has jumped into the top ranks of global hemp growing nations, recording a tripling of land under hemp to reach a total 78,176 acres (about 31,000 hectares) in 2018, according to the American hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp. Vote Hemp had recorded about 25,000 acres of hemp fields across the USA in 2017. Twenty-three states grew hemp in 2018, Vote Hemp said.

Globally, that puts the USA third, behind world leader China (400,000 acres/162,000 ha.) and northern neighbor Canada (100,000 acres/40,000 ha), and is nearly double the land sown for hemp in France (42,000 acres/17,000 ha.), Europe’s leading hemp grower. Only about 110,000 acres (44,000 ha.) of hemp were grown across all of Europe in 2017, the year for which the most recent figures are available.

Montana expands fast

The rapid expansion of hemp fields in the USA last year was driven primarily by anticipated passage of the U.S. Farm Bill, which removed hemp from the U.S. narcotics list. The Bill became law in late December. Strong demand for CBD was a major contributing factor in the growth of U.S. fields.

Internally in the U.S., Montana recorded the most fields under hemp last year with 22,000 acres (about 9,000 ha.), a drastic increase over the 542 acres (219 ha.) sown in 2017. Montana eclipsed perennial hemp leader Colorado, which was the second biggest grower in the USA last year with 21,578 acres (8,700 ha.), Vote Hemp reported.

It’s usually assumed that Canadian licensed cannabis producers have an advantage when it comes to international expansion, but the United States may have an edge over Canada in one country: Brazil. The South American country has seen steady growth in patient numbers over the past year, with the majority of CBD products arriving from the […]

US cannabis companies have advantage for CBD exports to Brazil is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

From Colombia to Italy, international cannabis firms are attracting investments from Canadian companies looking to further develop their international footprints.

Weekly Deal Watch: International, adult-use markets attract marijuana money is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post Mechoulam joins GW to advance CBD research was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

CBD producer GW Pharmaceuticals plc said it has set up a research collaboration with renowned Prof. Raphael Mechoulam of Israel’s Hebrew University of Jerusalem to research the pharmacology of phytocannabinoids and the cannabinoid system in humans.

Under the agreement with Yissum, a university-owned research development company, GW has acquired the rights to a number of cannabinoid patents invented by Mechoulam.

CBD patents

“The company will be working closely with him and his team for the next three years to develop these new opportunities in furtherance of its scientific and commercial activities,” GW said in a recent release. The patents include those relating to CBD and endocannabinoids (cannabinoids found in the human body).

Mechoulam also will act as a consultant on GW’s research into synthetic cannabinoids, the company said, becoming a member of the Cannabinoid Research Institute (CRI), which the company launched last year.

Marijuana Business Daily has launched its seventh annual survey of cannabis industry executives and investors, an undertaking that’s intended to help the Colorado-based company provide key market, financial and operational data for businesses and entrepreneurs. Owners, founders and executives with dispensaries/retail stores, commercial cultivation operations, infused product manufacturers, vertically integrated businesses, testing labs and ancillary firms, […]

MJBizDaily launches annual cannabis industry survey to collect key business data is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post Asian Hemp Summit finds a continent rising fast was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Asia is well positioned to embrace hemp in an innovative and unique way, with stakeholders only beginning to capitalize on the rich genetic diversity of the hemp plant across the continent.

That was the key finding from the first-ever Asian Hemp Summit held earlier this month in Kathmandu, Nepal as more than 100 stakeholders from 25 countries across the globe convened to survey opportunities in Asia’s potential powerhouse hemp nations.

And innovation is happening in both big and small enterprises – among new-era stakeholders ranging from giant industrial consortia in China to nascent startups in India and beyond.

Ongoing discovery

Many valuable traits, such as improved yields, improved fiber quality, improved seed oil/protein content, disease resistance and attractive cannabinoid profiles are already being discovered within Asian hemp populations.

The post Rome workshop will look at cannabis industry standards was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

The group aims to meet the needs of the legal cannabis industry by addressing quality and safetyASTM International will hold a workshop Feb. 18-19 in Rome under its technical committee D37 on Cannabis, which is working to develop standards for cannabis products and processes.

The group aims to meet the needs of the legal cannabis industry by addressing quality and safety through the development of classifications, specifications, test methods, practices, and guides for cultivation, manufacturing, quality assurance, laboratory considerations, packaging, and security.

ASTM International is one of the largest voluntary standards developing organizations in the world. The not-for-profit group provides a forum for the development and publication of international voluntary consensus standards for materials, products, systems and services. ASTM’s volunteer members represent producers, consumers, government, and academia from more than 140 countries who develop technical documents that are the basis for manufacturing, management, procurement, codes and regulations for dozens of industry sectors.

Advancement through standardization

The objective of D37’s Workshop on Advancing the Field of Cannabis/hemp through Standardization, to be held at the Rome Marriot Park Hotel, will explore creation of new industry standards. International liaisons responsible for updating the D37 on developments in their regions will also be appointed during the workshop.

The post Canopy Growth looks to put $500 million in USA hemp was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Canada-based Canopy Growth plans to boost its investment in U.S. hemp to as much as $500 million by expanding beyond current operations in New York state, the company recently announced.

Canopy said it looks to move into two or three other states in the USA as state-by-state regulatory environments become more clear.

Canopy Growth, Smith Falls, Ontario earlier announced a $100-150 million investment in a hemp processing operation in New York after being awarded a license from the state in January.

“We’ll do it state by state right now, because what has to happen is the state needs to regulate what is permissible for CBD,” Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton told Yahoo Finance. “So we’ll probably have three or four states that have big populations and progressive leadership who want to have hemp become part of their actual job creation industrial platform.”

Cannabis entrepreneurs say they’re facing jail time and hefty legal fees because of the plant’s complicated biology, with the vaunted 2018 Farm Bill only muddling the picture for interstate commerce. A pair of cases in Idaho and Oklahoma raised questions about how state and local law enforcement are supposed to tell the difference between hemp and marijuana. Since the […]

Marijuana or hemp? Manufacturers snagged by Farm Bill confusion is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

The post Meeting hemp at the Asian Hemp Summit was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

By Andi Lucas
Special to HempToday

As an absolute newcomer to the world of cannabis, the Asian Hemp Summit 2019 is the first industry event I’ve attended.

Inspired by a chance meeting with Alicia Fall from Her Many Voices and hemp industrialist Eric McKee in Denver last year, I’m happy to say that making the decision to travel to Kathmandu, Nepal for this event was the right one as this has been an incredibly worthwhile experience.

While I have a deep interest in learning more about cannabis and hope to work in this space, the truth is that I effectively have no knowledge of what exactly the plant is, what it can do, or who the current industry players are, so I leapt at the opportunity to come to Himalayan hills to absorb as much as I could about hemp.

The post European Industrial Hemp Association names new director was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Lorenza Romanese, a veteran European policy advisor, has been named Managing Director of the European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA), the Association has announced.

She replaces Michael Carus of Germany’s Nova Institute, an original founder of EIHA who served as Managing Director of the organization for 13 years.

“I am very conscious of the challenges the industrial hemp sector faces and I am convinced that a harmonized and comprehensive European approach could be beneficial for citizens, consumers and the whole industry,” said Romanese, who brings more than 10 years of experience as a policy advisor and communication manager at the European level. She has advised interests in the oil and gas sector, and most recently led the European Association of Independent Winegrowers.

Prior to taking up her new role with EIHA Romanese worked with a number MEPs to propose hemp reforms to the Common Agriculture Policy in the European Union.

The post Tests find problems in four CBD brands probed in USA was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Four of 29 CBD products were found to be troublesome in recent test results, according to Remedy Review, which contracts with independent laboratories “to validate products and protect consumers.” The results indicate the need for independent monitoring and testing of CBD products, Remedy Review cautioned in a press release.

Two of the products, Joy Organics Orange Bliss 500mg tincture and Pure Hemp Botanicals’ 750mg Pure CBD Oil Full Spectrum Tincture failed testing for pesticides. Joy Organics’ product failed due to detection of the pesticide Imazalil while Pure Hemp’s product showed presence of the pesticide synergist piperonyl butoxide. The producer has recalled Orange Bliss units that were purchased in the month of December 2018, according to Remedy Review.

Bacteria, labeling cited

In other results, Sagely Naturals Relief + Recovery CBD + Turmeric Capsules exceeded limits for bile-tolerant gram-negative bacteria; and JustCBD’s 550MG tincture (retail price $74.99) contained only 1.8 mg/mL of CBD – one-tenth the concentration listed on the label, or the CBD equivalent of a 50MG tincture that JustCBD sells for $15.00.

“There is unprecedented incentive for brands to rush products to market and potentially take risks in the supply chain that could harm consumers,” Remedy Review, which is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, said in the release.

The post Kentucky hemp fields could triple as applications soar was originally published on HempToday. Subscribe to our newsletter, check out our events and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter.

Hemp fields in the U.S. state of Kentucky could nearly triple this year as state agriculture officials say they have approved applications to grow up to 42,000 acres of the crop in 2019, up from 16,000 acres last year.

Farmers do not always take full advantage of their hemp farming allotments, however. For example, last year only about 6,700 acres of the 16,000 approved went under hemp.

Hemp ‘epicenter’

“The growth shows that Kentucky is rapidly becoming the epicenter of the hemp industry in the United States,” following passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, said Ryan Quarles, the state’s Agriculture Commissioner. “We believe Kentucky is ready to lead as the nation begins the process of transitioning to commercialization of a crop that connects our past to our future.”

Quarles said the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA) also approved 2.9 million square feet of greenhouse space for hemp cultivation.