A Dallas Company Plans To Be Among The First To Process Texas Hemp

KUT 90.5 | By Michael Marks

Published December 13, 2019 at 3:30 PM CST

Ryan Poppe/Texas Public Radio

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The Texas Department of Agriculture this week released a proposed set of rules for growing hemp, which had been illegal until the federal government's 2018 Farm Bill cleared the way for production.

The new rules will help would-be growers understand how the crop will be regulated. And when the hemp is ready to be harvested, a Dallas company has a plan for processing it.

A lot of people in Texas are excited about growing hemp. The crop has big profit potential, thanks in large part to the boom in cannabidiol, or CBD, products. But experts are cautioning would-be growers to be careful before they take a big leap. One reason is that growing hemp is just one part of the equation. Another is processing it 鈥� extracting CBD oil, or breaking the plant down so you can use its fiber.

As of now, there are no hemp-processing facilities in Texas, but that鈥檚 going to change.

Panda Biotech spokesman Bill Pentak says the company is developing the High Plains Hemp Gin in Shallowater, a cotton country town about 10 miles northwest of Lubbock.

鈥淲e鈥檙e expecting the gin to process around 130-thousand tons of Texas-grown industrial hemp on annual basis,鈥� he says.

Earlier this week,the Dallas-based company announced it has secured the rights to buy a 255,000 square foot facility in Shallowater.

鈥淲e think that hemp crops are very complementary to cotton, and we can certainly see them growing side-by-side,鈥� Pentak says.

This is a big deal, because while there鈥檚 no shortage of Texans interested in growing hemp, Panda Biotech is one of the few players to announce concrete plans to process it. Doing so requires a substantial investment 鈥� you need a lot of space and specialized equipment to harvest hemp fiber, which you can use to make everything from textiles to insulation, car interiors to hempcrete 鈥� a flame retardant construction material.

What the company鈥檚 gin won鈥檛 do is extract CBD. Even though early adopters in other states made a lot of money using hemp for CBD, Pentak said that Panda Biotech鈥檚 gin will only produce the plant鈥檚 fiber.

鈥淲e think that using hemp for manufacturing applications, we think it is a very big market, we also think it鈥檚 a growing market, and we think it鈥檚 a more sustainable market,鈥� he says.

The Texas Department of Agriculture will likely begin issuing licenses to grow hemp in February or March. Panda Biotech鈥檚 hemp gin could be processing hemp by this time next year.