Hemp Fiber & Grain Field Day at Cornell AgriTech

Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast

On the latest episode of the Hemp Podcast, we take the show on the road once more — this time to Cornell University’s Hemp Fiber and Grain Field Day at the Agritech Campus in Geneva, New York.

Among the many voices on this episode is Christine Smart, director of Cornell Agritech, who’s leading groundbreaking work on hemp diseases and crop resilience.

Hailee Greene, a recent Cornell MBA grad and founder of GreeneAcres Processing, talks about her ambitious plans to establish the first full-scale hemp-processing facility in New York, despite the financial challenges that lie ahead.

“We’re a couple million dollars away, which is probably the story of everybody that says they want to do processing at this point,” she said.

I also spoke with Maciej Kowalski, a Polish hemp entrepreneur who just wrapped up a trip around the U.S. to learn more about hemp processing.

He highlighted the disconnect he sees in the U.S. between farmers and textile manufacturers, stressing that fiber quality must start in the field.

“The textile people don’t care about what’s happening in the field, and the cultivators don’t care about what happens afterward. That’s not the way to make a good product,” he said.

Shelby Ellison, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is working to collect and preserve feral hemp genetics from across the U.S., preserving the genetic diversity of hemp, which can be used to breed more resilient and adaptive varieties.

So far, she and her team have collected more than 1,500 individual plant samples across 14 different states in the U.S.

Pennsylvania hempcrete builder Cameron McIntosh talks about the growing interest from federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, in addressing not only operational emissions but also the embodied carbon in construction materials.

We also hear from Pennsylvania hemp farmer Steve Groff, who shares a remarkable story about seeing an albino deer on his drive to Geneva.

Groff’s white deer might be a good omen for the industry, but it’s definitely a good omen for this episode of the podcast.

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Music by Tin Bird Shadow