Canopy Growth Snags New York Industrial Hemp License, Plans To Invest As Much As $150M

Canopy Growth Corp CGC shares were surging Monday after the company received a license from the state of New York to process and produce hemp. 

What Happened

The Canadian company plans to establish a hemp industrial park in New York with large-scale production capabilities focused on hemp extraction and product manufacturing.

Depending on site approval, Canopy Growth said it  plans to invest between $100 million and $150 million in its New York operations and create roughly 400 new jobs.

Why It Matters

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement that the deal is a win-win for Canopy Growth and the state, in what he said is an effort to make the Southern Tier region the Silicon Valley of industrial hemp production.

“I fought so hard to strip the burdensome federal regulations from industrial hemp in our Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2018, which was recently included in the Farm Bill, because I knew how much it could mean to the Southern Tier, and this investment proves it,” he said. 

The last legal hemp harvest in the state of New York was 80 years ago, according to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. 

What's Next 

Canopy Growth said it's in the process of evaluating a number of sites in New York and will make an announcement within 100 days. The facility will be one of the company’s first extraction and processing facilities outside of Canada and will source hemp exclusively from American farmers for its American operations.

Canopy Growth shares were up 9.8 percent at $42 at the time of publication Monday. 

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