We often get asked, “What’s the price of CBD per pound? That depends on a lot! “Commodity” is often a misnomer, particularly with hemp and CBD pricing.
The majority of CBD is extracted from hemp through two main processes: CO2 extraction and solvent extraction.CO2 extractionIn this process, carbon dioxide is under supercritical conditions – high pressure and low temperature – to isolate and preserve CBD. The CO2 method produces the cleanest, most isolated CBD oil that is free from chlorophyll, but requires much higher upfront fixed costs and a significantly steeper learning curve to perfect the process.
As hemp crops in the ground begin to mature, we’ve been continually asked by producers what’s going to happen to prices at harvest time. Anyone who gives a concrete answer on what way prices are going should quickly be ignored. Hemp is a new crop in many growing areas, and with so many variables inexperience affecting yields, the range of price trajectory is endless. That said, producers should know their options and use information from other agricultural markets to make smart decisions to reduce risk. Following other agricultural markets, main harvest should bring a large supply increase to markets, and with the year-over-year increase in planted acres, less developed storage and market options, and demand growth following a somewhat linear path, prices should see downward pressure at harvest.
The hemp industry is set to see significant changes in the coming years with the passing of 2018s Farm Bill, which legalized hemp on a federal level. New online trading platforms are emerging which focuses on commodity exchange at both wholesale and retail levels, for a variety of hemp-related products. PanXchange is the first of these platforms to prove their concept within the frac sand and East African commodity markets. With their additional expansion into the hemp market, PanXchange is primed to be a leader in online commodity trading for the industry.Kristina Etter, Editorial Content Director at CannabisTech sat down with Julie Lerner, CEO, and founder of PanXchange, to discuss the current state of trading within the hemp industry, the importance of accurate online commodity trading, and plans to expand into the isolate and distillate markets.
Denver-based online commodities trading platform PanXchange is stepping up — implementing a price-discovery system and report meant to create transparency in what has effectively been a gray market since the 2018 Farm Bill was signed in December. Before that, the market was officially black and accordingly opaque.Read more about PanXchange and the Hemp market here.
Hemp is a member of the cannabis sativa family but differs from marijuana as hemp is cultivated for an array of industrial uses rather than marijuana’s medicinal and recreational purposes. The hemp plant was domesticated thousands of years ago and one of the first plants used for fiber, but was outlawed in the US in 1970 after all species of the cannabis sativa family were labeled a Schedule 1 drug, and it’s legal status varies around the world with most countries heavily regulating any permitted production. In the 2018 US farm bill, industrial use of hemp was legalized nationwide.