HARVESTING

As is to be expected, little information that is widely accepted and adopted for planting, the same is also true for that of harvesting. Again, we have utilized existing equipment found on existing farming operations to understand the steps needed to kick start the nascent industry. We understand that most of this existing equipment is fine to utilize in the beginning stages of the supply chain, however as scalability and time spent in field need to be taken into consideration, we need to be aware of and understand the equipment that can be adapted as well as the equipment that will need to be developed to make a large hemp industry feasible. At this stage, for many farms, spending an exorbitant amount on new equipment that is, in essence “untested”, not only does not make sense, but is a hard sell to operations trying to contract farmers to grow for them. 

We spent the last two years, again, growing our own plots, utilizing existing equipment, traveling to see others equipment being used and researching heavily into what will be industry standard equipment. Building relationships with both domestic makers of this equipment, as well as others from Europe, has allowed us insight into what is most practical and economical for the time being. It has also shed light on ways of harvesting that will more than likely become standard practice in the future. Being that we are in a unique space, as far as our end use material, we have a bit more latitude to work with more traditional harvesting and foraging techniques. These techniques and equipment will continue to be tried, tested and shared with our farmers and colleagues to push the envelope forward. It is only through actual use and data collection that we can truly understand what is going to be best for every player along the value chain.