Lessons learned from Colorado’s first hemp harvest since legalization

Denver Business Journal

It’s the first harvest season since the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill was signed into law — and hemp farmers, investors and analysts are working the fields and crunching the data, working diligently to better understand the potential of the plant that was federally legalized through its passage.

And while those experts are saying that the biggest lessons are yet to be learned, the fundamentals of a fledgling market are beginning to fall into place in the first state to fully regulate the plant and its intoxicating cousin, marijuana.

“You’re going from all these small-scale pilot programs [and] people are starting to ramp up and starting to commercialize,” said RJ Hopp, director of hemp markets at Denver-based online trading commodities platform and intelligence firm PanXchange. “And with that massive amount of growth, people through the supply chain are feeling different pinches in different areas.”