Lancaster Farming Podcast with Hemp Processing Partners

This week’s podcast features Shane Pritchard and Bill Brill from Hemp Processing Partners, a Colorado-based company focused on providing processing solutions for fiber, grain and floral hemp production around the world. Pritchard, chief engineer and co-founder of Hemp Processing Partners, said he sees how passionate people are about farming and genetics on one hand, and how other people are focused on what the hemp plant can be used for. “But,” he said, “there’s kind of a void in the equipment space there in the middle to get you from the great farming practices to the great uses of hemp.” Hemp Processing Partners, he said, was created to fill that void and provide industrial knowledge. The company started out providing processing solutions for the floral side of the industry, but has expanded into fiber and grain processing. A vice president of business development at HPP, Brill said he sees the momentum building and soon the hemp industry will reach critical mass. “People around the world, entities around the world, governments around the world — both domestically and internationally — are inquiring about large scale solutions,” he said. “Lately, there’s been so much smoke, we know fire’s coming.” In this interview we talk about the company’s goals and values, how it got started and where it’s headed. The conversation also veers into interesting territory of ESG investing, carbon sequestration, changing the stigma around industrial hemp and much more. After the interview with Hemp Processing Partners, we check in with Deputy Ag Secretary Fred Strathmeyer from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture to hear what’s in store this year at the Pennsylvania Hemp Summit in Harrisburg Nov. 14-15.