Highway to Hemp: On the Road With Owen Deitcher

This week on the hemp podcast, Lancaster Farming catches up with recent Cornell grad Owen Deitcher, who is on the road this summer to visit hemp farmers and processors around the country. The reason he's making this trip, he said, is to understand where the industry is at the moment, who the main players are and what challenges they face. Deitcher sees a disconnect in the minds of the public and wants to shed some light on the journey from hemp in the field to end-products. "We don't really know what goes on in the production and processing side," he said. His first stop was in Murray, Kentucky, where Greg Wilson gave him a tour of the HempWood facility, which has grown substantially since Lancaster Farming visited HempWood two years ago on our National Hemp Tour. From Kentucky, Deitcher went to Texas where he attended a hempcrete workshop, then to South Bend Industrial Hemp in Kansas, where Melissa Nelson and the Baldwin brothers have created a strong local hemp supply chain and economy by building a hemp-processing facility. Heading west to Colorado, he spent time in Monte Vista, a regional hub of hemp innovation and processing power and home to hemp equipment manufacturer Formation Ag and Global Fiber Processing, a facility that went online in 2022. Lancaster Farming caught up with Deitcher while he was taking a break in Boulder, Colorado, before embarking soon for IND HEMP in Montana, then through the upper Midwest as he journeys eastward, eventually stopping at Steve Groff's Cedar Meadow Farm in Holtwood, Pennsylvania, sometime in August. Graduating with a master's degree in regional planning from Cornell, Deitcher is interested in renewable energy development, agrivoltaics, biofuels, circular economy, industrial hemp processing/end-use production, and agricultural supply chains. Also on this episode, we cover last week's launch of the Pennsylvania Hemp Engine and provide details on a few upcoming local and national hemp events in August. Follow along on Owen's trip on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/highwaytohemp/ Learn More About Cornell's Hemp Program https://hemp.cals.cornell.edu/ Upcoming Hemp Events Aug. 3-5 South Dakota Industrial Hemp Field Day https://www.eventbrite.com/e/industrial-hemp-field-day-tickets-643817313917 Aug. 15-16 King's AgriSeeds Field Day https://kingsagriseeds.com/ Aug. 15 Penn State Hemp Research Field Walk, Policy Update and Networking Event https://agsci.psu.edu/research/centers-facilities/extension/landisville News Nugget: IND HEMP Completes New Oilseed Certified Seed Cleaning Facility and Processing Expansion https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/07/12/2703339/0/en/IND-HEMP-Completes-New-IH-Oilseed-Certified-Seed-Cleaning-Facility-and-Processing-Expansion.html Thanks to our sponsors and supporters: IND HEMP https://indhemp.com/ King's Agriseeds https://kingsagriseeds.com/ Americhanvre Cast-Hemp https://americhanvre.com/ HempWood https://hempwood.com/