Arcadia's Hawaiian hemp joint venture triples its cultivation area; targets sales soon

Arcadia Biosciences Inc (NASDAQ:RKDA) has tripled its hemp cultivation footprint to 30 acres in Hawaii through its joint venture with Legacy Ventures Hawaii. 

The new acreage comes by way of partnerships with two new license holders, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. The two companies, operating together as Archipelago Ventures, are seeding the land this month and plan to hire crop management and harvesting staff. 

Archipelago has also begun building large-scale mobile extraction and processing equipment in order to produce THC-free, sun-grown hemp isolate or distillate. 

READ: Arcadia Biosciences is here to grow a healthier world

The venture, established in August, was constructed to weave together Arcadia’s expertise in plant genetics and Legacy’s experience in extraction and sales, while leveraging Arcadia’s cultivation facility in Hawaii.

“We are laser-focused on fine-tuning and accelerating our vertically-integrated hemp cultivation and extraction operations in Hawaii with our partners at Archipelago Ventures, in order to deliver sales as soon as possible,” Arcadia CEO Matthew Plavan said in a statement.

Hawaii’s sunny climate will allow the venture to keep growing hemp during the winter months, the company said, as farms on the mainland have to go dormant until spring. That’s an extra two grow cycles.

“We are proud to be the first major crop innovation company to recognize and act on Hawaii’s potential as a center of excellence for hemp research and cultivation,” Matthew Plavan said. “Our researchers and scientists are some of the best and most experienced in the world, and Hawaii’s unique geographic and climate conditions for growing and harvesting hemp year-round give us a long-term competitive advantage that many mainland cultivators cannot match.”

Furthermore, Archipelago has had the highest success rate of any cultivator in the state of avoiding so-called “hot crops,” or batches of hemp with THC levels above the 0.3% federal legal limit. According to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture, more than half of crops harvested over the past year have tested hot. 

Contact Andrew Kessel at [email protected] 

Follow him on Twitter @andrew_kessel

Story by ProactiveInvestors