CBD Farmer & Hemp Builder React to New Federal Hemp Definition
Industrial Hemp Podcast
Congress changed the definition of hemp this week, clarifying the original intent of the 2018 Farm Bill and closing the intoxicating-hemp loophole that enabled a nationwide market of unregulated semi-synthetic THC products. The change caps finished hemp products at 0.4 mg total THC per package, bans synthetic cannabinoids, protects legal CBD and fiber/grain hemp, and gives farmers a one-year implementation window. What does this mean for the hemp industry? How will it affect farmers? How will affect the hemp industry? On this special episode of The Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast,...
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Code, Carbon and Hemp-Lime Construction with Jake Waddell
Industrial Hemp Podcast
This week on the Hemp Show, we're talking to Jake Waddell from the Hemp Building Institute about the future of hemp construction, building codes and embodied carbon. Hemp-lime construction has come a long way — from early experiments in a garage to an officially recognized building material in the International Residential Code. Environmental Product Declarations, or EPDs, are changing how sustainability is measured in construction and what that means for hemp-based materials. And even when government funding for climate-forward projects gets cut, the people driving this industry keep...
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Oh, For The Love of Farming...
Industrial Hemp Podcast
This special edition of the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast celebrates the , which has been reporting on agriculture since 1955. Recorded at Penn State’s Ag Progress Days, this episode is a love letter to farming and to the people who make it possible. Farmers and ag leaders reflect on why they farm, what’s changed, and what remains timeless — love of land, faith, family, and devotion. Here's a quote from Wendell Berry that frames the conversation: “Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And...
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The Winds of Cansayapi (Part Three)
Industrial Hemp Podcast
Welcome to part three of our Cansayapi Trilogy in which we explore the 13th International Hemp Building Symposium, held Oct. 3-5, 2025, at the Lower Sioux Indian Community in Southwestern Minnesota. Part Three opens where part two left off, with the sounds of a waterfall that melts into the rhythms of the Red Tree Singers as they chant and pray and lead the way into Day Three of the Hemp Building Symposium. After a news nugget from HempToday, this episodes opens with a tale of three Minnesota architects — Janneke Schaap, Simona Fischer and Anna Koosmann — who provide a roadmap for...
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Voices from Cansayapi (Part Two)
Industrial Hemp Podcast
On this episode we continue on our journey with host Eric Hurlock to Cansayapi, the place where they paint the trees red, the Lower Sioux Indian community, the home of the Medewakantan Band of Dakota people in Southwestern Minnesota. You will hear many voices on this episode — people who were there, people who were involved, people who are lighting the Eighth Fire. You will hear from: Danny Desjarlais — Lower Sioux Hemp Builder Cameron McIntosh — Americhanvre Cast Hemp Steve Allin — International Hemp Building Association Honovi Coup Trudell — son of John Trudell Samantha...
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The Road to Cansayapi (Part One)
Industrial Hemp Podcast
This week on the Hemp Show, you are stowing away with me as I retell the tale of my trip to the 13th International Hemp Building Symposium, which was held for the first time ever in the United States — and specifically on sovereign Dakota land in what is now called Minnesota. We’re going to Cansayapi, the place where they paint the trees red. We will hear Dakota drums, chants and prayers from the Red Tree Singers. We will hear the voices of Vannessa Goodthunder, Tammy Desjarlais and Danny Desjarlais as they open the symposium with a vision for the future we all can share. The Dakota people...
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USDA Hemp Report: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Industrial Hemp Podcast
This week on the Hemp Show, we're talking to Brad Truman, a data analyst with CannaMarkets Group, about his recent deep dive into USDA’s hemp import data. His report, published in HempToday under the title When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: USDA’s Hemp Data Problem, raises serious questions about how hemp is being measured—and what those flawed numbers mean for farmers, investors, and policymakers. Truman walks us through the painstaking process of pulling USDA hemp data out of PDFs, analyzing inconsistencies, and uncovering outright anomalies—like the infamous April 17th, 2024 report,...
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Fighting Powdery Mildew With UV Light & Breeding Hemp for Better Grain and Fiber
Industrial Hemp Podcast
On this week’s Hemp Show, we’re back at Cornell Agritech for part three of my . In this episode I visit plant pathologist Jane Hamilton, who’s testing UVC light as a non-chemical tool against powdery mildew, and Luis Monserrate from Larry Smart’s breeding program, where seed size, yield and chemotype drive decisions for grain and fiber growers. Next, we walk through Jane’s UV cabinet and the powdery mildew chamber, talking dose windows and why powdery mildew (unlike some fungi) doesn’t have melanin to block UV. Then it's over to Luis for small-plot yield math, why bigger seeds can...
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Inside Cornell AgriTech: Germplasm, Robots and Hemp
Industrial Hemp Podcast
On this week’s podcast, we continue our trip to Geneva, New York, for part two of the Cornell story. I spend some time with Christine Smart, director of Cornell AgriTech, and her husband Larry Smart, professor of plant breeding and genetics and head of Cornell’s hemp program. Christine takes me through the history of the Agritech campus — from its 1882 founding to its living plant libraries and cutting-edge robotics labs. We talk Liberty Hyde Bailey, the USDA germplasm repository, and a future where UV light replaces pesticides and robots roam the fields. Then Larry brings us inside...
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Grain & Fiber Hemp Field Day at Cornell 2025
Industrial Hemp Podcast
On this week’s podcast, host Eric Hurlock travels to Geneva, New York, on the top of Seneca Lake to take part in Cornell’s Hemp Field day, held Thursday, Sept. 11. This episode covers both the morning and afternoon sessions for the field day. The day started in Jordan Hall on Cornell’s Agritech Campus, where hemp program director Larry Smart got things started with a reminder why we were there in the first place. “Hemp is an interesting crop, has a lot of potential, but there are some things that we just don’t understand about this crop,” he said. The morning session was focused...
info_outlineThis week on the Hemp Show we’re talking about flax, a fiber plant with remarkable similarities to industrial hemp when grown for textiles.
There’s a fair amount of flax growing this year in southeastern Pennsylvania.
The last time this much flax grew here, tractors hadn’t even been invented yet.
By the late 1800s flax production was in rapid decline in the Keystone State, pushed out by cheap cotton and forgotten by a country racing toward synthetic fiber — which makes 2025 a special year in Pennsylvania.
Thanks to the PA Flax Project, spearheaded by Heidi Barr and Emma de Long, there are 30 acres of flax for fiber production in Chester, Montgomery and Lancaster counties this year.
Thirty acres sounds small, but it’s a far cry from the eighth of an acre the organization started with in 2022, or the zero acres for generations before that.
When they harvest their 30 acres of flax next week, de Long said, this will be the first flax for fiber ever mechanically harvested in Pennsylvania.
“When flax became no more in the United States, thanks to cotton and free labor and synthetics, the linen industry was destroyed. And since then, it has mechanized in other parts of the world. So now that we are having a resurgence of growing fiber flax and bringing this industry back, we have imported equipment from Belgium and we’re ready to rock and roll,” she said.
Barr said the Pennsylvanian Department of Agriculture has been instrumental in helping further the nascent flax industry in the state.
“We advocated for and they added fiber flax to Pennsylvania’s specialty crop list, which made us eligible for a specialty crop block grant, which we received,” Barr said.
The organization also received an Organic Market Development Grant through USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, which they are using to implement their business plan and scale acreage, educate and support farmers, and to develop a plan for a scutching mill, Barr said.
She said the mill will be a worker- and farmer-owned cooperative, based on flax-producing co-ops in Europe.
The podcast this week shares a handful of voices from the PA Flax Project’s Flax Flower Picnic, held June 14 at Lundale Farm in South Coventry Township, Chester County.
In order of appearance on the show, we hear from Emma de Long and Heidi Barr from the PA Flax Project; Natalie Horvath, design director at F. Schumacher and Company, a family-owned textile and interior design powerhouse in New York; Bill Schick, director of agriculture for the PA Flax Project; Mike Roth from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture; Paul Turner, chair of the Department of Theater and Dance at Rowan University; Leslie Davidson from the Pennsylvania Fibershed; and PA Flax Project member Rachel Laramee.
After flax, we check in with Dr. David Suchoff from NC State University in North Carolina about the Global Fiber Hemp Summit in Raleigh later this month.
Learn More:
PA Flax Project
F. Schumacher & Co.
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Pennsylvania Fibershed
North American Linen Association (NALA)
Thanks to our sponsors!
IND HEMP
Forever Green, distributors of the KP4 Hemp Cutter