Tribes across the Northwest will soon make a foray into a new economic venture: hemp production and manufacturing.
On March 10, Oregon State University’s Global Hemp Innovation Center, or OSUGHIC, received a $10 million grant to work with 13 tribes within the geopolitical boundaries of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, Montana and Nevada to spur economic development with hemp production.
OSUGHIC earmarked the funding for collaboration with tribal partners to bolster economic development by establishing an intertribal business consortium connecting hemp production, processing and manufacturing to create various completed hemp products.
OSUGHIC will work with each individual tribal partner to identify its unique needs in the project. The list of tribal partners will be kept confidential until OSUGHIC has the opportunity to work with each tribe to identify how the intertribal consortium will work and be governed.
In addition to the project’s 13 participating tribes, OSUGHIC is collaborating with several colleges, including a tribal college and three additional land-grant universities, established hemp and bio-manufacture companies, and Indigenous-led companies like 7 Generations LLC, a West Coast-based business development firm.
Prior to joining the OSUGHIC project, several of the participating tribes made independent ventures into growing hemp and manufacturing hemp-derived products. The new funding and consortium aims to bolster existing efforts and create new pathways for economic development.
The project has four primary objectives. First, to support the development of a tribal-led intertribal biomanufacturing consortium and form regional business trading networks among the partners. OSUGHIC says it is prioritizing the engagement of tribal communities throughout, calling tribal entities the “central participants” of the project, utilizing educational programs, workforce development and centering tribal priorities and culturally-sustaining teaching and learning practices. The project aims to provide education and engagement opportunities for tribal communities by creating K-12, community college, and university curricula, student internships and mentorship opportunities, and presenting hemp economic development opportunities to tribal decision-makers.
Through education and engagement, OSUGHIC says it seeks to develop a multicultural workforce capable of participating in the hemp-based biomanufacturing economy. A majority of tribes participating in the project cited housing as their top priority.
OSUGHIC says workforce development projects will include creating a “skilled tribal workforce” for manufacturing hempcrete building panels, a concrete-like building material derived from hemp, for restoring and building housing on reservations.
The project’s next goal is to optimize materials, manufacturing equipment and facilities and to establish sustainable manufacturing pipelines that produce the desired products. OSUGHIC will also focus on optimizing product quality, field production, harvesting and manufacturing systems. OSUGHIC will use a “whole system” approach to use of the hemp, aiming to utilize the entire plant to create multiple products with no waste, similar to corn and cotton farming.
By identifying market opportunities and focusing on sustainable, scalable production processes, the project aims to foster collaboration among tribal partners, non-Native partners and other rural stakeholders. OSUGHIC will analyze the economic, environmental and social impacts of hemp-based economic development and adjust its procedures to align with tribal goals.
The initiative stems in part from an increasing interest in the industrial potential of hemp and hemp-derived products following the federal decriminalization of hemp six years ago. The popularity of CBD-based products, a non-psychoactive compound found in hemp that is scientifically proven to aid in the treatment of some epileptic conditions and thought to help a host of other medical conditions like anxiety, drove the first boom in hemp production post-decriminalization.
However, OSUGHIC says hemp production for CBD-based products dropped significantly by the year 2020. For this project, it’s key to build supply chains that are sustainable and long-lasting and meet tribal goals.
Hemp has a wide variety of potential uses, ranging from construction fiberglass to paper, rope, linens, soaps and more, many of which can be substituted for plastic-derived products or those produced with coal, natural gas or oil.
The project began taking shape in July 2023 as tribal and non-tribal partners worked with OSUGHIC to formulate a grant proposal to send to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Jeffrey Steiner, director of OSUGHIC, assisted in developing the project and will continue his work as it moves forward.
“There is still significant interest and potential in industrial uses of hemp,” Steiner said, “But it’s critical that investment decisions be based on sound science and business planning to build out and scale up economic development opportunities with hemp, particularly to benefit Tribal nations and other American rural communities.”
OSUGHIC says it emphasized Native participation from the beginning. It started with the inclusion of a Native American-owned business development firm specializing in Indian Country as an “active partner” and sought the priorities of the 13 participating tribal nations in the project’s preliminary design.
Central to the project is the formation of an intertribal business consortium, or IBC, consisting of the participating tribal project partners. The IBC will work together to identify partnerships that will benefit the entire consortium, develop one-to-one, tribe-private and tribe-public partnerships.There will also be opportunities to form additional partnerships outside the project for developing new technology. The project will focus heavily on optimizing equipment, production and product to give the fledgling project a competitive edge in established hemp product markets.
The OSUGHIC project will build on earlier research and a previous $10 million USDA grant. The aim is for the collaboration to serve as a model for advancing bio-based manufacturing economies and generating benefits for economically underserved communities. But Steiner says it’s more than just a model — it’s an opportunity to create a real impact on issues affecting Indigenous and rural communities.
“We're working on how we make this project last beyond the five years we’re funded for,” Steiner said. “That's why we're engaged with other entities, working with the community (and) economic development people on the tribes and elsewhere, so we get some legs built under this — and just make it another vehicle for helping to address some of the other issues that are so important in our communities to be addressed, including housing.”
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