Ask Our Experts: Commodity Pricing of Hemp Biomass

 

Q: Is there a reliable means of determining the price of hemp biomass?

By New Frontier Data

A: As the punchline of an old joke goes, the answer is to practice, practice, practice. Facetiousness aside, given that hemp has not been fully established as a commoditized agricultural product, it remains difficult for farmers to fully assess the going price for hemp biomass. Unlike corn or sugar, there are few centralized sources that regularly report the price of hemp, though there some available for farmers to gauge the going rate (though often for a subscription fee, at that).

Recent reporting about the price per % of CBD content (post-testing), per pound in Colorado at $0.72%, representing a 26% decline from the previous month. The biomass in Kentucky ($0.74), Oregon ($0.70), and the Northeast ($0.73) are similar, with an outlier existing in the Great Plains region, with selling at approximately $0.62.

For refined products, prices are down across the board. In the state of Colorado, winterized crude is selling at around $550 per kilogram, full-spectrum distillate is at around $1,725 per kilogram, broad-spectrum is $3,200 per kilogram, and isolate is at around $1,925 per kilogram. Smokable flower is trading between $150 and$300 per pound.

Prices are in general decline for the time being, with the market seeing an oversupply of biomass and a lack of infrastructure to process it. However, as the year goes on, prices will likely stabilize as more processors come online.

As Corbett Hefner, vice president of research and development for Colorado-based Formation Ag, cited in Farm Journal’s AgWeb, while cultivators this season may be wise not to plant any more than they can afford to turn under, opportunities for hemp yet offer compelling reasons to work with the crop, ranging from animal feed to construction materials: “Those are the kinds of things you need to be thinking about to make money with this crop.”