In 2020, nearly 90% of hemp production was focused on the CBD and CBG markets. But, many industry insiders believe the real future of hemp lies in fiber.
“Fiber is really going to be the future of the industry. If you look back, history tells us that,” says Larry Farnsworth, National Industrial Hemp Council's senior vice president of communications and marketing.
Because hemp fiber can be the basis for thousands of everyday products, the sector is ripe for explosive growth. Universities and major players in the hemp industry are investing substantial resources into solving the problems that are impeding that growth, chief among them, undeveloped infrastructure, lack of standards, and a disjointed supply chain.
[2020] saw myriad breakthroughs in the fiber industry as more U.S. researchers began studying fiber varieties and the technology to process them. For example, at the University of Kentucky, Interim Director of Hemp Programs, Bob Pearce, recently expanded the university’s fiber field trials into a wider geographic area to include more than a dozen varieties. And Mark Sunderland, the chief innovation officer of Hemp Black—a hemp technology company and subsidiary of Ecofibre—and vice president of innovation and technology for Thomas Jefferson University, recently developed a way to process hemp hurd into particles. These particles act as “a building block for new fibers and new yarns going forward so that these materials can be brought into the existing commercial supply chain,” Sunderland said.
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