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Hemp as an Indicator Species: Mapping the Future of Bio-Based Building

Release Date: 02/19/2026

1937 International: Hemp Textiles, Pakistan to Product

Industrial Hemp Podcast

This week on the Hemp Show, we talk with Ryan Zaczynski, co-founder of 1937 International, a company working to build global supply chains for industrial hemp. In this episode, Zaczynski talks about what it takes to move hemp beyond niche markets and into real products that people use every day — by building supply chains that connect farms, textile mills and manufacturers around the world. At the center of that effort is Pakistan, where 1937 International is working in partnership with Dr. Zafar Riaz and his team to develop hemp production and tap into one of the world’s largest...

Hemp in New Zealand: Policy, Markets and the Long Game

Industrial Hemp Podcast

Industrial hemp has been developing quietly in New Zealand for more than two decades. In this episode, we're talking with Richard Barge, treasurer of the New Zealand Hemp Industries Association, about how the sector has evolved — from early government trials in the early 2000s to a growing network of farmers, seed processors, fiber decortication facilities and researchers exploring hemp’s role in the bio-economy. Barge explains how New Zealand’s hemp industry has taken a deliberate approach to growth, scaling carefully as markets develop rather than chasing acreage without demand. The...

The Mythic Possibilities of Hemp Fiber

Industrial Hemp Podcast

Long before we talked about hemp as a commodity crop with profound industrial potential, hemp was something simpler: a plant grown in soil, worked by human hands and shaped into useful things. This week on the Hemp Show our guest is Laura Sullivan — hemp farmer, Extension educator at the University of Vermont and fiber artist whose work explores hemp not as a commodity but as a material with cultural and ecological meaning. Laura recently completed her Master of Fine Arts, using hemp fiber grown on the research farm to create garments and installations that blur the boundary between...

Field to Fabric: Building a Hemp Denim Supply Chain in Pennsylvania

Industrial Hemp Podcast

On this week’s Hemp Podcast, we talk to August Cook, Joseph Carringer and Dave Cook of Commonwealth Denim and Tuscarora Mills about their effort to weave, cut and sew 100% hemp selvedge jeans in Pennsylvania — and what it will take to rebuild a regional textile supply chain from farm to finished garment. Pennsylvania has a long history with textiles, from homespun hemp and linen in colonial times to the grandeur of Philadelphia’s textile mills in the early 20th century. But by the end of the 20th century, the industry had pretty much collapsed, held together by specialty manufacturers...

Hemp as an Indicator Species: Mapping the Future of Bio-Based Building

Industrial Hemp Podcast

This week on the Hemp Show, we widen the lens. Hemp is more than a crop — it's part of a larger material system that connects farms, forests, manufacturers, builders and cities. Architect and urban researcher Kaja Kühl joins the podcast to explain why she calls hemp and straw “indicator species” — materials that signal the health of a regional building ecosystem. Through her Bio-Based Materials & Construction Resources Map, she has been documenting the farms, processors and builders already working across the Northeast. In this conversation, we explore what it would take to...

Inside the Trojan Horse of Intoxicating Hemp

Industrial Hemp Podcast

This week on the Hemp Podcast, we have a long conversation about hemp-derived intoxicating cannabinoids with Chris Fontes, president of the U.S. Hemp Authority and founder of Trojan Horse Cannabis and High Spirits Beverages. Trojan Horse Cannabis was the first company to bring so-called intoxicating hemp derivatives to market, changing the hemp space forever. For decades, hemp advocates said hemp was different from marijuana because hemp couldn’t get you high. But the 2018 Farm Bill created the perfect conditions for the birth of a whole new chapter in the story of hemp. Fontes said when he...

Spring Hemp Preview: Webinars, Short Courses, and Conferences

Industrial Hemp Podcast

This week on the Industrial Hemp Podcast, host Eric Hurlock is joined by Lancaster Farming staff reporter Dan Sullivan to talk about one Pennsylvania farmer’s decision that’s captured national attention. Farmer Mervin Raudabaugh Jr. in development money to preserve his Cumberland County farm for future generations. Sullivan explains how he found the story, why it resonated with people in and out of agriculture and what it says about the challenges farmers face regarding preserving their land. From there the show turns to upcoming events for the hemp community in the next few...

Hemp in Pennsylvania: Commodity Crop or Shadow Cannabis Market?

Industrial Hemp Podcast

We’re back. Season 9 of the Hemp Show is here. In this season opener of the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast, we'll take you inside a hearing organized by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania that was meant to explain the hemp industry to state lawmakers — and ended up revealing something else entirely. The original intent of hemp in the Farm Bill was about agriculture and manufacturing, but the conversation has been dominated by intoxicating cannabinoids, chemical definitions and law enforcement concerns. This episode weaves together testimony from regulators, business owners...

Hemp in 2025: Cliff Hangers, Course Corrections and Community

Industrial Hemp Podcast

2025 was a year of uncertainty, contradiction and recalibration for the hemp industry. In this year-end episode of the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast, host Eric Hurlock looks back on a season defined by policy whiplash, shifting definitions and hard conversations about what hemp is — and what it is not. From rumors of executive action and the collapse of intoxicating hemp loopholes to the rescheduling of marijuana and its ripple effects across agriculture, the year ended with more questions than answers. The episode revisits key voices from across the hemp landscape —...

In the Hemp Studio with Farmer Steve Groff

Industrial Hemp Podcast

We have a special in-studio guest this week on the Industrial Hemp Show. Steve Groff, third-generation Lancaster County farmer and hemp innovator from Holtwood, Pennsylvania, stopped by the Hemp Studio at the Lancaster Farming Office in Ephrata. We talked about machinery, long fiber, seed spacing, planter design and why farmer economics need to make sense if this industry is ever going to scale. “Farmers are gonna have to get 10 or 20% more profit per acre for this hemp out the gate,” he said. We also talked about the green decorticator he’s been working on. And when we got back from...

More Episodes

This week on the Hemp Show, we widen the lens. Hemp is more than a crop — it's part of a larger material system that connects farms, forests, manufacturers, builders and cities.

Architect and urban researcher Kaja Kühl joins the podcast to explain why she calls hemp and straw “indicator species” — materials that signal the health of a regional building ecosystem. Through her Bio-Based Materials & Construction Resources Map, she has been documenting the farms, processors and builders already working across the Northeast.

In this conversation, we explore what it would take to scale regenerative construction from rural landscapes into dense urban markets — and why regional supply chains may matter more than centralized industrial models.

We discuss:

• Hempcrete as a carbon-storing wall system

• Why moisture regulation and indoor air quality may be hemp’s most overlooked strengths

• Straw panel manufacturing and collaborative scaling models

• The advantages — and challenges — of building in a dense Northeastern region

• Housing as long-term carbon storage infrastructure

Kühl also reflects on building two carbon-zero hemp homes in New York’s Hudson Valley and what she learned working alongside early-stage material startups.

As federal climate policy shifts, atmospheric carbon does not. If emissions oversight weakens, land-based carbon strategies — including fiber crops like hemp — only grow more consequential.

This episode situates hemp inside a broader conversation about how we build, where materials come from and how regional economies can store carbon in the walls around us.