Vancouver, Washington, Dec. 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Hemp Industries Association today unveiled the product of several months of collaboration between the HIA, the Global Hemp Association, the Midwest Hemp Council, and the US Hemp Building Association: a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive, and searchable map of businesses operating across the North American hemp fiber and hurd supply chain.
Hemp fiber (or bast) and hurd are versatile components of the stalk of the industrial hemp plant, with famously numerous potential applications. Despite that potential, a lack of infrastructure, knowledge, and processing facilities have combined to hamper the growth of this segment of the hemp industry since growing the crop was federally legalized in 2018. The project, which combined research conducted by each contributing organization, was spearheaded by the HIA’s Grain and Hurd Council and is a freely available resource for potential hemp farmers, processors, and other businesses along the hemp fiber and hurd supply chain.
“The concept began with the goal of helping someone contemplating adding fiber hemp to their crop rotations to find out if there is a processing facility nearby that could purchase their hemp,” said HIA’s Executive Director, Jody McGinness, “When we discovered that other groups were working along the same lines, we reached out to try to combine our efforts and the result was a far more complete picture of the fiber and hurd supply chain than we even anticipated.”
The map includes listings of active processors with details about the businesses fiber processing capacity, products, available services, and the geographical range from which they source hemp for production. Due to its size, fiber hemp in particular is impractical to store for long and ship long distances, so most processing facilities have a defined radius from which they can efficiently purchase hemp, which is reflected in a radius around the business listing on the map itself.
A user can click a “show me on the map” button and quickly determine whether they fall within one of those processor’s sourcing radius. The initial map includes less than thirty identified active processors, but is expected to grow substantially in the coming years as new facilities come online. Zev Paiss, HIA’s Fiber and Hurd Board Director and Chairperson of the Fiber and Hurd Council, described the future potential of the map this way: “While this interactive fiber and hurd map will help identify existing business, I suspect it will be even more helpful for those looking to create new business opportunities in currently underserved locations.”
Active processors and other businesses along the hemp fiber and hurd supply chain are invited to submit or revise their map entries here on a complimentary basis: https://thehia.org/map.
The Sisters of the Valley sponsor this announcement as proud members of the Hemp Industries Association.
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