Highway to Hemp: ‘Wild West’ of the CBD Market

Industry Waits On FDA Approval To Reach Its Full Potential, But Producers Are Still Hopeful

Across the country, bags of hemp grown as long ago as 2019 still sit in barns, waiting to be sold and extracted. 

When the 2018 Farm Bill legalized industrial hemp, most growers grew hemp for cannabidiol (CBD) extraction, because it had a high profit-to-acreage ratio. With an estimated 455% increase in U.S. hemp producers, the CBD industry quickly found itself with a glut of product and not enough consumer demand. Moreover, there wasn’t enough processing capacity to make the crop profitable.