Hemp and CBD had a tough year in 2020 but hope springs eternal

A dramatic 2020 in the hemp CBD industry will be the focus of the Hemp Collective Virtual Summit II, being held Wednesday, Dec. 9 from 11:00am to 3:30pm EST.

All things hemp will be covered, from production issues to regulatory bottlenecks, nature to the global pandemic that affected retail sales.

Just before the 2019 hemp harvest in cannabis kingpin Colorado, an early-season snowstorm hit the eastern plains with three inches of heavy snow and freezing temperatures. Vertically integrated market leader Functional Remedies experienced a 40% loss—from 5,500 pounds per acre to 3,300.

Fortunately, the savvy company had other grow locations, minimizing its loss as best it could.

Meanwhile, West Coast wildfires exacted a toll on hemp harvests there.

Nature is always a threat to farmers growing anything anywhere. It’s part of the deal.

But hemp farmers in 2020 were already facing a significant price drop following an overzealous overproduction year of 2019 following the ballyhooed signing of the farm bill in December 2018. Acreage planted in 2020 was about half that of 2019, to 291,000 acres, according to Vote Hemp.

Adding to producer trepidation was the USDA’s Interim Final Rule that deigned to make felons out of farmers.

Thanks to the coronavirus, supplements as a whole have done well at bricks-and-mortar retail, but consumer focus has shifted from CBD to immunity-enhancing supplements.

Related:How to find the right partner for your CBD brand – podcast

What’s a motivated, creative, innovative, passionate industry to do after all this whiplash?

The answers to these questions swirling around everyone’s minds will be revealed on Wednesday, Dec. 9 from 11:00am to 3:30pm EST at the Hemp Collective Virtual Summit II. Attendees can register for this free event here.

If you are already registered on Spark Change for previous events, go here.

In this half-day Zoom-style meetup, you can learn the top things to know about today’s CBD Market. Sessions include:

The Summit is sponsored by market leaders Ananda Hemp, Balanced Health Botanicals, Beneficial Blends, Bluebird Botanicals, Charlotte’s Web, CV Sciences, EcoGen Laboratories, Green Roads, Korent Hemp CBD, MedTerra, Nutiva, Sorse Technology and Sunsoil CBD Oil.