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Industrial hemp has the power to revolutionize the manufacturing industry. It can be used for a variety of applications in everything from farming to textiles. However, the U.S. hemp industry is nascent, the crop having been banned for 82 years until the 2014 Farm Bill legalized hemp through a pilot program that allowed it to be cultivated for research purposes only. Four years later, the 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp from the Controlled Substances Act, and industrial hemp became a fully recognized agricultural product.
Guy Carpenter is the president of Bear Fiber Inc. in Morganton, N.C., and has been working with hemp fiber out of China for more than 25 years. In 2017, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper appointed him to the first industrial hemp commission. However, during that year, “everyone was so infatuated with the idea of CBD, that that was all we were working on,” Carpenter notes, adding, “and that kind of annoyed me because I had been working with hemp fiber for over 25 years.”
Out of that frustration, Bear Fiber was born in 2017, Carpenter says, “to promote the use of hemp fiber and textiles and apparel here in the United States.”
With the recognition of hemp as an industrialized product, Panda Biotech was established in 2019 in Dallas, Texas, “and we began our first fiber trials in 2020 using European fiber,” says Mark D’Sa, Panda Biotech’s senior vice president of business development. “Simultaneously, we distributed close to 100,000 pounds of different industrial hemp seeds of different genetics to farmers in Texas to begin research on the most suitable seed varieties and procured world-class processing equipment for our facility.”
During Panda Biotech’s first 18 months, the company hired Carpenter as a processing consultant, and despite the strides the company had made, D’Sa notes, “the process of education and testing for producers to farm hemp, manufacturers to process it for countless nonwoven applications and for spinning mills to find the perfect blend of hemp fiber to spin is ongoing.”
“From a material sourcing standpoint, there just wasn’t much textile-grade hemp fiber to work with [in those early days],” says Carpenter. “On top of that, there was a lack of processing equipment to decorticate the hemp stems [to separate the fiber from the hurd]. And then there was a challenge in degumming the hemp because there were just a couple of people that were capable of handling that here in the U.S.”
Nonetheless, Carpenter says Bear Fiber still managed to get to a point “where we had spinnable fiber, and we blended it with American cotton.”
He also initially was aided in his endeavors by two sponsors: global brand Vans and a company called IND HEMP, based in Fort Benton, Mont. With their help, Carpenter managed to spin a few thousand pounds of yarn and create the first commercial hemp fiber textiles that are completely grown and processed in the U.S.
Overcoming obstacles
Among those working hard at cultivating industrial hemp is Texas A&M AgriLife Research in College Station, Texas, where Russell Jessup is a professor of industrial hemp and perennial grass breeding. Together with his team, Jessup focuses on breeding improved hemp cultivars (fiber, grain, cannabinoid and multiuse types) as well as value-added hemp-derived bioproducts as alternatives to plastics, synthetic pesticides and other products.
“We’ve focused primarily on heat tolerance and uniformity via developing the framework and methods for hybrid cultivars in our hemp breeding efforts,” says Jessup, adding that he has seen general and “incremental advances in hemp population breeding efforts and building public plant material collections.”
Despite these strides, Jessup says from a practical standpoint, high-performing hybrids similar to major crops are still lacking, and adaptation with heat tolerance for the Southern U.S. is very limited. “We just don’t have the adaptive materials here yet,” Jessup says, “but we’re trying to work on it. And once we have it here, we can improve it, and this should help out a lot with the farmers.”
Carpenter says there’s also the issue that “there hasn’t been any real adoption by any American brands to commit to the production of textiles for their use within their apparel brands,” adding that several brands use hemp fiber, but it’s mostly sourced from China. He believes the reason for this is simply because “it’s easier because it’s a much more established system in China. It’s been an accepted fiber in the textile and apparel industry [there] for over 60 years, and it never really slowed down.”
He adds that while there still are a few textile mills around, “We continue to lose them, and most are devoted to providing one kind of product, like 100% cotton yarn or 50/50 cotton polyester.” Carpenter also notes that most of those mills aren’t “flexible enough to try a new fiber blend without some sort of commitment for millions of pounds at a time.”
Even with an increased interest in industrial hemp, committing to its production requires a processing line, “which is akin to a cotton gin,” Carpenter says, adding that even investing in a small one can cost anywhere from $5 to $10 million.
In April, Panda Biotech made that multimillion-dollar investment and began commercial operations at its 500,000-square-foot, 97-acre Panda Hemp Gin industrial hemp processing facility in Wichita Falls, Texas. As the first facility of its kind in the U.S., the gin can process up to 10 metric tons (11 U.S. tons) of industrial hemp into a textile-grade fiber, hurd, short-fiber/hurd mix, and nutrient-rich micronized hurd per hour. It’s a zero-waste process, using every part of the industrial hemp stalk, and operates on 100% renewable energy.
Even with this giant leap forward, D’Sa notes that while he believes the demand for industrial hemp is there, “It takes time for trials to be conducted for clothing, paper, biodegradable plastics, construction, automotive materials and so much more because hemp can be used to produce thousands of products.”
The future of industrialized hemp
Carpenter, D’Sa and Jessup see a booming future for industrialized hemp. In five years, Carpenter says he thinks “we will be producing tens of thousands of yards of textile here in the United States and exporting hundreds and hundreds of tons of raw fiber to other countries for them to process and utilize within their spinning of yarns.”
Touting hemp’s versatility, D’Sa notes how new uses for hemp are being discovered daily. “In five years, many of the industries that we have discussed will have replaced less sustainable products with hemp,” he says. “We expect clothing brands will not just develop a ‘hemp line’ here or there but will consistently blend a percentage of hemp in a majority of clothing made.”
Jessup also believes there will be a major expansion in the hemp market. “We’ll have finished cultivars adapted across the U.S. for fiber and grain markets,” he says, and there will be “Type V [null cannabinoid, with little to no THC] hemp, hybrid cultivars and numerous high-value hemp-derived bioproducts commercialized.”
Carpenter concurs. “There’s going to be more hemp planted, and there are more hemp processors that will be prepared to process the fiber correctly,” he says, noting that will open a lot of opportunities “not just for us here in the United States, but also there’s a demand for the fiber overseas, and that gives us some export opportunity.”
Adds D’Sa, “We are seeing that more and more countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, China, France and Poland are growing and processing hemp fiber for textiles and other applications. Because of this, we should see hemp as a more prevalent commodity in our wardrobes in the near future.”
Jessup remains both optimistic and ambitious, citing hemp’s high protein and high fiber qualities. “It has none of the allergens like dairy and soy and gluten,” he says, “so it’s an anti-allergenic or nonallergenic feedstock, and I think it has beautiful potential.”
Kelly Hartog is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles, Calif.
SIDEBAR: Misconception: Cotton and hemp are not at odds
There is a misconception that somehow hemp producers are attempting to replace cotton, but, says Guy Carpenter, president of Bear Fiber Inc., in Morganton, N.C., “We’re not cotton’s enemy. I always say that cotton is hemp’s BFF—Best Fiber Friend. We can take the best attributes of cotton and the best attributes of hemp and create a new natural technical fiber yarn that is stronger and more abrasion-resistant, lasts longer and has a number of other attributes incidentally.”
Mark D’Sa, Panda Biotech’s senior vice president of business development, concurs. “We believe that hemp and cotton are complementary. Our goal is to supply quality hemp fiber that can be blended with cotton and other fibers to produce a more durable fabric and bolster the sustainability goals that many retailers have set forth for themselves as they innovate to meet the demands of the eco-conscious consumer. Hemp is also eight times stronger than many other fabrics that are used for daily wear.”
D’Sa cites another common misconception: hemp’s connection to CBD/marijuana. He says those misconceptions are “much better than [they were] a few years ago, but education is still needed.” Opening his company’s facility “helped to chip away at those misconceptions,” he says, noting it attracted “worldwide media attention and attendees from all over the globe. And the growing number of inquiries for textile-grade hemp fiber; fiber for nonwovens, pulp and paper; and biocomposites prove that the confusion is dissipating.”