Hemp prices plunge
The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday, Jan. 28, edition that hemp prices are plunging amid a "grossly oversupplied" market, says the head of the industry's first price provider. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post reports that hemp biomass prices reached a high of over $40 (U.S.) a pound in July, just before the 2019 harvest came in, according to Panxchange chief executive officer Julie Lerner. Today, it is trading under $10 (U.S.) a pound following a quadrupling of supply from 2018 to 2019. "Every way you slice it, the physical demand for the CBD market is much, much smaller" than the supply, says Ms. Lerner. She adds: "I'm a little surprised that retail prices have not started to come down yet. There's so much competition." Ms Lerner founded Panxchange in 2011. Panxchange launched the hemp industry's first suite of benchmark prices in January, 2019, one month after the U.S. farm bill legalized the plant and added a trading platform in August. Today, the hemp market is "rife with desperate sellers and opportunist buyers," said Ms. Lerner in a December analysis. Meanwhile, U.S. prices for cannabis also fell in most states and categories in 2019 -- the opposite of the trend seen north of the border.
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