Canopy breaks ground on hemp industrial park in New York

One of the largest cannabis companies in the world made a significant move into the U.S. hemp industry Monday by breaking ground on a new industrial park for hemp processing in New York.

Canadian cannabis giant Canopy Growth Corp., based in Smiths Falls, Ontario, unveiled plans for a $150 million hemp industrial park in Kirkwood on a 48-acre property about 5 miles north of the Pennsylvania border.

The 308,000-square-foot facility could create more than 400 jobs, according to Vestal, New York, radio station WSKG.

“This will really become our hub on the East Coast of the United States to do this manufacturing and really scale the business,” Canopy Growth President Rade Kovacevic said during the event.

The new industrial park, set to open this fall, is Canopy Growth’s first move into the hemp sector and its first official step into the United States. Canopy plans to extract and process hemp into CBD oils, topicals and consumables.

The company has said it does not plan to grow hemp in New York but, rather, will make agreements with farmers to supply the processing plant – and New York farmers will receive priority.

Canopy wrote in a tweet Monday it expects its New York operations will include roughly 2,000 acres of hemp.

In June, the company said it will open hemp processing facilities in seven U.S. states within the next year.

Canopy Growth trades on the New York Stock Exchange as CGC.