Takeaways from Our Conversation on Hemp Market’s Growth Potential

October 6, 2023 by Don Jergler

Hemp is often a sidenote in conversations about the cannabis industry, but hemp has far greater growth potential than most people probably think.

That’s according to a new report out that shows hemp along is a $350 billion market based on just 10 industrial uses.

Our latest episode features Beau Whitney, an economist whose firm Whitney Economics out of Oregon, which builds data-driven economic models for hemp and cannabis operators, investors and regulators.

Following are takeaways from that conversation.

Whitney explained what he did in his latest report.

“What I did is I took a look at 10 different industries where hemp could support and then calculated the total potential share and then compared that to the cannabis market on a global basis,” he said. “And just with those 10 product lines, 10 areas alone, it’s a $350 billion market. That’s compared to a $250 billion market for cannabis, for adult use and medical. So just 10 product lines. It’s greater than all of the sales, all of the total demand for cannabis worldwide.”

Hemp has always been considered the little cousin of, but Whitney’s analysis shows medical and adult use may be the little cousins to hemp.

According to his findings, the elements that will contribute to that growth are already there.

Hemp parts for automobiles was one example in his findings.

“In the EU, for example, 20% of some cars for BMW and Mercedes contain hemp parts,” he said.

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Textiles, hempcrete (concrete blocks used in construction), lithium batteries to power cars, are other potential growth areas for hemp.

“You can power a car using hemp batteries rather than having to dig up ground for lithium mining,” Whitney said. “And there’s plastic bags, cutlery and skincare and energy drinks and animal feed. All of this contributes. All of these are emerging markets, and they all can have contributions from the hemp industry.”

Whitney isn’t stopping there with hemp. He’s working on another report due out soon, which entails a state-by-state analysis that the economic impact that hemp drive cannabinoids are having on the U.S. market.

“Initially even I was somewhat skeptical about the size of the market, but the more and more I dug into it, the more and more surveys I had of business owners and gas station owners and grocery store operators,” he said. “And the more I realized that the size of the hemp drive cannabinoid market was enormous and it was being underestimated by a factor of 10 or 15 – the largest forecast that I saw for the market was about $3 billion. And I think it’s more in the $20 to $30 billion rather than the $3 billion range.”

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