by Joanne Ivancic* (Advanced Biofuels USA) “They seem to be serious,” said Atlantic Biomass’ Bob Kozak reflecting on a tour of a hemp farm in central Ohio. He noted, “They are going all-in, putting their own money into this—no grants and planting 26 acres the first year.” Kozak was there with Dr. Fred Michel and Dr. David A. Ramirez-Cadavid of Ohio State University’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, Ohio.
l-r David Ramirez-Cadavid, Jacob Hagemeyer, Robert Kozak, Magdalena Pancerz, and Fred Michel get to know each other, socially distanced at Cedar Valley Farm
They had worked together before on enzymatic conversion of biomass as part of the process of extracting natural rubber from Russian dandelion roots. Now they were looking to apply the same team work and technology to the agricultural residues from hemp used for CBD (cannabidiol) production.
Maryland-based Grant for Converting Hemp Waste to Bioeconomy Building Blocks
The OSU researchers were bringing their expertise in milling biomass, and Kozak was bringing the enzymatic process being developed at Hood College, to work being done to assist an Energy Innovation Seed Grant awarded to University of Maryland Eastern Shore by the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute. UMES has been developing hemp for the state’s emerging hemp farm businesses and realized that most of the plant material has no use in the CBD industry. They obtained the grant to explore the efficacy of using the Atlantic Biomass enzymatic process to convert that waste biomass into building blocks of renewable chemicals and fuels.
Kozak, Michel and Ramirez-Cadavid were meeting in late August 2020 to consider what milling operations options would be tested. Taking advantage of being able to visit the largest hemp farm in Ohio, located near the Wooster campus, they met with the experts to learn more about the CBD business and to discuss how its residues might be a low cost feedstock for biofuel production, how they could find value in this agricultural waste.
Inside the greenhouse they will flare farm-sourced natural gas to enhance carbon dioxide levels for plant growth.
Building a Hemp Business for the Future on the Remains of a Declining Dairy Industry
The U.S. Department of Agriculture February 2020 Milk Production report showed the largest annual decline in the number of licensed dairy operations in 15 years. The Farm Bureau noted that since the end of 2014, dairy farmers struggled with low prices resulting from large supplies outweighing demand, in the U.S. and around the world. This hemp farm would be built on the remains of one of those out-of-business dairies.
In August 2019, after Ohio passed laws permitting hemp farming, CEO Shawn Cutter and Vice President of Business Development Jacob Hagemeyer started thinking about the new business possibilities, doing extensive background research. And making plans.
Once they completed initial research, the family discussed and agreed to create a CBD hemp business. Financial prospects were far from their only motivation. CBD is usually promoted for managing anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain and some childhood epilepsy syndromes. Personal benefit from CBD use, as well as family members with cancer who benefitted from medical marijuana (or who might have if it was available), convinced the family to pursue not only production of hemp for CBD, but to incorporate in every step, every aspect of the venture, efforts to improve and advance the state of the agricultural art through technological development, including horticultural innovations and precision agriculture.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) values are also embedded in the business. The only restriction at this time is a promise to “Mom” to focus on hemp, not cannabis.
Hemp bud growing in greenhouse at Cedar Valley Farm
Everyone had a Covid Projects To Do List for the “stay-at-home” start of the Covid 19 pandemic; but few as ambitious or ground-breaking (so to speak) as that of the Cedar Valley Farms family.
When “stay-at-home” restrictions started, they were ready to gather the various talents developed by the family members in IT/technology, farming, oil/gas production and cement/construction to repurpose an old dairy farm, tearing down old barns and designing and building extensive greenhouse and processing facilities for CBD. Out of the remains of a declining dairy industry and in the depths of the depressing pandemic, they had hope and plans. They worked to grow a business for the future.
How It Works from Seed to CBD and Co-Products
CBD is extracted from unfertilized female flowers of hemp plants that, in Ohio, may have no more than .3% of THC, the ingredient in cannabis that produces a “high.” Leaves, stems and stalks remain as residue, as do male plants uprooted before they can fertilize the females. After harvesting plants from fields, roots will remain to enhance soil health. Potting soil and roots from greenhouse plants will be composted, renovated and reused.
OSU/Atlantic Biomass team in drying “barn” selects samples for milling and enzyme testing from pile of discarded male plants.
The harvested plants will be trimmed and hung to dry in a specially built modern drying barn. When crispy dry, the flowers are gathered and prepared for shipping to a final CBD extraction facility, leaving extensive biomass for other uses. At this time, the Cedar Valley team, now expanded to include experienced horticuturist, Dr. Magdalena Pancerz, is looking at potential value-added options for these residues such as animal feed, composting and processing for bedding.
As a result of the OSU/Atlantic Biomass visit and as part of the UMES project, research has begun on testing enzymatic conversion of these residues to sugars as building blocks for bio-based chemicals or for advanced ethanol that might eventually be used as a solvent in the extraction process or sold for other industrial uses, for fuel or, perhaps, as a beverage. Only partly joking, the group observed that hemp-based vodka could bring a much better price than hemp-based transportation fuel.
Similar research is being conducted with hemp residues in British Columbia and Kentucky ( here and here).
Horticulturist Magdalena Pancerz shows off a model, bushy field-grown hemp plant
To Benefit the Industry in General
Cedar Valley Farms became one of the first to apply for licensing in Ohio. They see themselves as pioneers in the industry, trailblazers making developments that will benefit not only their operation, but the industry in general. To accomplish this, they have entered into strategic partnerships, such as those with Trilogene Seeds, energy-saving VioletGro LEDs, Link4 iGrow 1800 climate-control modules and near-by Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute.
They intend to produce the highest quality product possible, continually improving quality of the final product as well as agricultural practices and business operations. They are employing the latest in agricultural technologies from A/B testing soil and nutrient ratios, to using spectral imaging to refine optimal irrigation and fertilization methods.
Also, as Hagemeyer explains in an interview in Greenhouse Grower, “A lot of hemp biomass ends up getting turned into oil. In the extraction process, you’re often losing a lot of the terpene profile that makes those different strains unique. We’ll treat our hemp flower the same way we treat a legal cannabis crop, all of the curing and focus on maintaining quality throughout the process.”
They also intend to use all their resources as efficiently as possible. This includes enhancing levels of CO2 in the greenhouse with controlled flaring of natural gas from wells on their farm. Eventually, should the ethanol production take off, CO2 from fermentation may fill that need.
Heading into the Future. l-r: Ramirez-Cadavid, Kozak, Michel, Hagemeyer and Pancerz walk towards a field of hemp, oil/gas wells in the distance.
Working in both a greenhouse and 26 acres of open fields, they note, “Our aim is to establish a map for hemp to function as a commercial enterprise, with a business model where the ideologies of operational management take the place of traditional farm to market methods. All while honoring the values of a family farm that has been in operation since the early 1800s.”
Successful Maryland and Ohio-based research to convert the residue hemp biomass to low carbon building blocks for the bioeconomy and renewable transportation fuels would further the conscientious development of sophisticated hemp farming as a part of a sustainable, renewable bio-based future.
* Joanne Ivancic serves as the executive director of Advanced Biofuels USA.
Plants without the plant? A look at cannabinoids made with yeasts instead of plants (Biofuels Digest)