Northeast entrepreneurs push industrial hemp fiber manufacturing, ask senators for state support

Janet Curry, a Vermont hemp grower and co‑founder of Bill Hemp USA, and Travis Samuels, co‑owner and CEO of Scion Growers, told the Vermont Senate Agriculture Committee that industrial hemp fiber offers a pathway for farm diversification and local manufacturing — if state and federal policy and financing hurdles are addressed.

Curry, owner of Valley Stock Farm, described how she grows a Polish fiber hemp strain with a roughly 70‑day maturation and harvests the crop like hay, noting specific production practices and contamination concerns. "We go in and be cut right before the males start to produce the pollen because pollen can travel anywhere between 10 to 15 miles and can contaminate either a CBD crop or now, in this case, a THC crop," Curry said, explaining the harvest timing and neighbor‑friendly practice. She said harvested stalks are dried to about 10% moisture, raked and baled for processing and that early test plots produced measurable yields while extreme weather has sometimes…