The Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University keeps lining up grants, the latest of which was a five-year, $5.5 million commitment from the USDA to research the crop’s uses in new food, beverages and biobased industrial products.

With the funding, the six-year-old center will work with Agricultural Research Service scientists to develop customized genetics to meet the needs of biobased product manufacturers and are adapted to growing conditions in the western U.S., according to the university.

“The goal of this research is to develop multiple product streams from hemp with no remaining waste, just as has been successfully done by the cotton, corn and timber industries,” center director Jeffrey Steiner said. “Having uses for all the byproducts of the plant will increase crop production marketing options for farmers and help support creation of new job opportunities in the domestic biobased economy.”

OSU’s hemp center was launched in 2018 as the nation’s largest research center devoted to the study of hemp with nearly 20 academic departments contributing to the work.

Oregon was a trailblazer in reintroducing hemp to American markets, authorizing its cultivation in 2009 and beginning to license growers in 2015. By the time hemp was decriminalized nationally in the 2018 farm bill, the Beaver State ranked third in the U.S. in licensed hemp acres planted behind Montana and Colorado, according to the center’s website.

Related:Ore. hemp zone project receives grant

Hemp corridor

The latest USDA grant follows a $10 million award from the agency in March to work with other Western land grant universities and 13 Native American tribes to develop manufacturing capabilities for materials and products made by hemp.

The tribes are within the geographical boundaries of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Montana and California. The other universities are the University of California, Davis; University of Nevada, Reno; and Washington State University. The universities and tribes are seeking to build a hemp production base along the Highway 97 corridor to help the region’s nine tribes to diversify their economies from casinos.

“It’s use it no longer just CBD, but oil and fiber,” Zhaohui Wu, a professor in OSU’s College of Business, told Farm Press last year. Hemp as a feed grain and fiber material shows lots of promise, as its stalks can be blended with lime to make hempcrete, a renewable alternative to concrete and plastic.

“BMW is using hemp to replace plastic, and Ford is using it,” Wu said.

Different colleges at OSU are studying aspects of hemp use and production according to their expertise. For instance, pharmaceutical students are considering hemp’s uses in medicine, while other scientists are feeding hemp byproducts to livestock.

Related:Beyond the hype: Center finds uses for hemp

With the latest funding, Oregon State and USDA researchers will take a “genes-to-field-to-factory” approach, in which they match hemp genetics with different environmental growing conditions and different manufacturing products that can be produced from the plant, the university explains. Artificial intelligence will accelerate this work.

The research team will use hemp biomass to create biodegradable and compostable packing products, including nursery pots, fresh produce boxes and takeout containers, building materials for use in housing construction, and plant-based food and beverage products made from hemp grain, according to OSU.