The USA has jumped into the top ranks of global hemp growing nations, recording a tripling of land under hemp to reach a total 78,176 acres (about 31,000 hectares) in 2018, according to the American hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp. Vote Hemp had recorded about 25,000 acres of hemp fields across the USA in 2017. Twenty-three states grew hemp in 2018, Vote Hemp said.
Globally, that puts the USA third, behind world leader China (400,000 acres/162,000 ha.) and northern neighbor Canada (100,000 acres/40,000 ha), and is nearly double the land sown for hemp in France (42,000 acres/17,000 ha.), Europe’s leading hemp grower. Only about 110,000 acres (44,000 ha.) of hemp were grown across all of Europe in 2017, the year for which the most recent figures are available.
Re-posted from Hemp Today.
