A major cannabidiol (CBD) hemp processor in Pittsburgh has shuttered in the wake of plummeting pricing, leaving farmers with the all-too-familiar problem of a lack of buyers.
Commonwealth Alternative Medicinal Options (CAMO) recently closed its 45,000-square-foot CBD processing facility, TribLive reports. CAMO Chief Operating Officer Mike Moody told the outlet the company saw a 75% decrease in prices for finished products.
Those in the CBD space are familiar with this hard downward trend on pricing. In August of 2019, biomass was selling around $3.50 per percentage point of CBD content, according to pricing from PanXchange. By January of 2020, that had fallen to less than $1.
In its peak, the company employed about 25 people, TribLive reports. It grew its own hemp but also contracted with farmers to grow more. Those growers report still having thousands of pounds of unsold crops.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, in 2019, 324 hemp permit holders planted and grew approximately 4,000 acres of hemp.
As prices have suffered from an oversupply of farmers rushing into the market, other processors have had similar troubles. Winchester, Ky.-based hemp processor GenCanna recently filed for bankruptcy in a move to reorganize more than $100 million in debt.
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