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CapitalPress.com
Friday, May 21, 2021
Hemp
Grower sees future of hemp in flowers
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
SUTHERLIN, Ore. —
Geoff Bale is continually try-
ing to read the hemp mar-
ket. After the hemp rush of
the past couple of years came
to a halt, Bale decided to
focus on marketing the hemp
flower and to ease up on the
CBD oil market.
“It seems like the flower is
where the market is headed,”
said the 36-year-old who
founded Umpqua Valley
Hemp in 2018. “There’s so
much biomass, it brought the
oil price down significantly
in the past two years. There
are less extractors available
now so if you don’t have
your own extractor facility,
it’s hard to make a profit.
“I’ve learned a lot the last
two years,” added Bale, who
has a botany degree from
Humboldt State University
in Arcata, Calif. “We’re just
trying to stay ahead of other
people in the industry …
anticipating the direction the
industry is headed.”
Umpqua Valley Hemp
is a partnership of Bale, his
wife, Maria, and his par-
ents, Mary and Barry Bale.
Geoff and Maria were vege-
table and medical marijuana
farmers in the Grass Valley,
Calif., area before becoming
intrigued by the potential of
hemp. They purchased bot-
tom land with water rights
alongside Calapooya Creek
west of Sutherlin. The prop-
erty is near where Maria, an
Oakland, Ore., High School
graduate, grew up.
Four acres of hemp were
planted in 2018 and after it
produced a profitable crop,
the couple sold their Cali-
fornia property and moved
even with a crew of 40,” he
said.
So in 2020, only 30 acres
were planted. The farm is not
certified organic, but Bale
said organic practices are
used. To deal with a grass-
hopper problem, chickens
were released into the hemp
field. To deal with elk loiter-
ing in the field and deer eat-
ing the hemp plants, hazing
permits were obtained from
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife.
“We decided to concen-
Craig Reed/For the Capital Press trate on quality rather than
Geoff Bale, co-owner of Umpqua Valley Hemp, is focus- mass production,” Bale
ing his operation on the hemp flower. His business is explained. “We reduced
selling trimmed flowers and is working on establishing our harvest crew to 15 and
an online store to sell several other hemp products.
learned to be more efficient
with our process. We’re
north permanently.
that “we planted a little too appealing to the flower mar-
In 2019, 50 acres were much and it was a little too ket rather than the biomass
market and extraction for
planted to hemp. After that fast of growth.”
harvest was impacted by
“We were constantly oil.”
Bale said Umpqua Valley
rain, Geoff Bale admitted behind and couldn’t keep up
hemp is now selling trimmed
flowers by the pound all over
the world to individuals, bro-
kers and smoke shops.
The business planned to
open its own online store in
April or May.
Bale explained the hemp
products offered will be 13
varieties of flowers, tinctures,
salves, CBD gummies, pre-
rolled hemp joints and ter-
penes. Any surplus biomass
will be shipped to a lab in
Eugene, Ore., where CBD
oil will be extracted, giv-
ing Umpqua Valley Hemp
one more product to offer
through its online store.
“We’re trying to get out
of the wholesale box, work
on our own brand and our
own products,” Bale said.
“I believe in the long run if
you play your cards right
you can be profitable in this
industry.”
Unique location produces high quality
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
RICKREALL, Ore. —
Pacific Hills Farms’ unique
location at the head of Ore-
gon’s Van Duzer Corridor
captures cool breezes from
the Pacific Ocean as they
make their way into the
Willamette Valley, afford-
ing them several distinct
advantages.
“We don’t use plastic
mulch and our site is incred-
ibly windy, great for provid-
ing the plants with protec-
tion from powdery mildew,
bud rot and mold, allow-
ing us to farm our hemp
entirely spray-free,” Tay-
lor Pfaff, owner and CEO of
Pacific Hills, said. “Our pest
control for insects and dis-
ease is entirely natural, the
only additional inputs being
nutrients via irrigation.
“This and the absence
of plastic mulch means that
our fields can be farmed and
rotated easily without any
adverse long-term effects
on our land or soil, which is
highly important since hemp
is a bio accumulator and will
absorb any inputs directly
from the soil.”
Pfaff began his journey in
2019 by carving out 40 acres
of his family’s vineyard,
Left Coast Estate, for hemp
production.
“My family has a viti-
cultural background and I
believed that we could apply
similar principles to farming
hemp: A focus on sense of
place, quality growing prac-
tices and vertical integra-
tion from the ground to the
end-consumer
products,”
Pfaff said.
The operation uses about
half of its 40,000 square feet
of drying space for its own
needs, offering the remain-
der to other farmers. Hemp
is slowly air-dried and cured
for quality and terpene pres-
ervation. Terpenes are found
in essential oils of plants.
“With high quality net-
Left to right, co-founder Jonathan Cook, farm man-
ager Gretl Gauthier and co-founder Max Sassenfeld
are a part of Resonance Farm in Eugene, Ore.
Farm produces hemp
products from field to retail
Pacific Hills Farms
Last year’s hemp harvest in full swing at Pacific Hills Farms.
Pacific Hills Farms
Taylor Pfaff, left, and Ca-
leb Hilton of Pacific Hills
Farms inspect a freshly
harvested crop.
Pacific Hills Farms
Pacific Hills Farms owner Taylor Pfaff takes samples of
last year’s hemp crop.
ting suspended from the
truss arches, accommo-
dations can be made for
upward of 20 acres of smok-
able flower to hang dry and
cure properly,” Pfaff said.
Their laboratory in Inde-
pendence, Ore., is entirely
focused on extraction and
the creation of Pacific
Hills branded products that
include balms, muscle rub
and facial serum shipped
directly to the customer.
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“Unfortunately, CBD is
still relatively loosely reg-
ulated and it’s difficult for
consumers to know what
is actually in the products
they’ve purchased,” Pfaff
said. “A range of studies
demonstrates a wide vari-
ance of what is in CBD
products versus what the
label says.”
Pacific Hills works closely
with Oregon CBD in Mon-
mouth, a federally legal can-
nabis research and develop-
ment company. It provides
farmers with scientific knowl-
edge and works to put its best
findings into their hands in the
form of non-GMO and certi-
fied organic hemp seeds for
production purposes.
“They are one of the pre-
mier pioneers in the indus-
try and have some incredible
genetics created specifically
for our local climate,” Pfaff
said. “Very few producers
are able to show a transpar-
ent block chain of the prod-
uct’s life from seed to end
product.”
He said his wine back-
ground will help him
develop his hemp business.
“We hope to continue to
evolve this approach in a
similar manner to the wine
industry and develop a rep-
utation for our products that
is tied to our unique growing
site in the Willamette Val-
ley,” Pfaff said. “I believe
that the mantra ‘You need a
great crop to produce great
products’ applies equally to
the hemp industry.”
By ALIYA HALL
For the Capital Press
EUGENE, Ore. —
Inspired by the burgeon-
ing CBD industry, Jonathan
Cook began to look into the
potentials of hemp. In 2016,
after months of research,
Cook partnered with Max
Sassenfeld to found Reso-
nance Farm.
“(We) concluded that the
idea to bring a hemp product
to market could be economi-
cally viable if (we) grew the
hemp, extracted it and for-
mulated a retail ready CBD-
rich oil,” Cook said.
Resonance Farm now
produces
cannabidiol
(CBD) oil and cannabig-
erol (CBG) oil using organic
farming practices.
Sassenfeld owned and
operated Tani Creek Farm,
a certified organic farm on
Bainbridge Island, Wash.,
for 10 years. His focus was
producing vegetables for
farmers markets.
Cook has been part of
Eugene’s food and restau-
rant community since 2001
and is a working CSA mem-
ber at Camas Swale Farm in
nearby Coburg.
Along with the bet-
ter known CBD, Reso-
nance Farm produces CBG.
Unlike CBD, CBG reacts
with the cannabinoid recep-
tors of the brain while being
non-psychoactive.
The same equipment
is used for both CBD and
CBG. They use a traditional
method of hang drying
and slow cure their hemp,
“which is more labor inten-
sive, but yields a superior
quality product,” Cook said.
No petrochemicals are
used in the production of
the oil. It’s all extracted with
carbon dioxide, which is the
cleanest method for botani-
cal extractions.
The biggest challenge
was the learning curve of
pioneering an industry that
hadn’t existed for decades,
Cook said.
In 2017, the supply chain
for hemp and CBD products
was virtually nonexistent.
“We had to create a net-
work of clients,” he said.
In 2017-2018 they grew
more hemp than they could
process and had to sell their
biomass to other processors
for around $50 a pound.
In 2019, prices dropped
due to an influx of large
scale hemp producers cre-
ating more supply than
demand.
“We grew less volume
and switched focus to build-
ing our own brand,” Cook
said.
“In 2021 the supply chain
has matured and there is
more access to raw materi-
als, creating more competi-
tion,” he said.
The other challenge was
the logistics of growing and
harvesting hemp in Ore-
gon’s variable weather.
“We lost a huge percent-
age of our 2019 harvest due
to heavy rains in mid-Sep-
tember,” said Gretl Gauth-
ier, the farm manager.
Although the outbreak of
COVID-19 that March was
another challenge, Gauth-
ier said they didn’t have any
plants in the ground at the
time. This allowed them to
take the time to implement
safe practices at the farm
and at their facility.
Despite the uncertainty
created by COVID, “inter-
net and Lane County Farm-
ers Market sales remained
steady,” Cook said.
This year, their focus is
investigating several new
avenues to bring hemp prod-
ucts to the retail market.
“Our plan is to continue
to strengthen and maintain
our integrity as a reputable
field-to-shelf company,” he
said.
While it’s rewarding to
create jobs and contribute to
the community, Cook said
the most rewarding aspect
of what they do is “creat-
ing products that positively
impact people’s lives.”
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