A small group of pioneers is looking to harness the potential of the untapped US market for hemp seeds and fibre.

It all began in 2019. Travis Samuels and Brandon McFarlane, cousins in the United States state of Vermont, had grown newly legalised hemp to produce CBD. Also known as cannabidiol, CBD is a chemical derived from hemp, and marketed for its potential health benefits.

But once the ban on growing hemp was lifted, the market became flooded with the CBD variety of the plant. Several acres worth of Samuels and McFarlane’s crop sat unsold in their barn in Vermont. That’s when they began to think about the untapped market for another variety of hemp, the stalky fibre that unlike the flowery CBD type has 25,000 industrial uses.

There was one problem, though. They could grow the hemp but there were no facilities nearby to process it. So they decided to solve the problem by building their own.

In January, the pair bought an old grain mill in St. Johnsbury, a small town about 50 miles (80km) south of the Canadian border. They plan to retrofit it to store and prepare hemp for wholesalers wanting to make animal bedding and materials such as insulation. They hope to be up and running by this September. If they hit their target of 9 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of material in the first year, they estimate they will make $3m to $5m in revenue. [Read More @ Al Jazeera]