Steve Groff and the Great Wall of Hemp

About this episode

Steve Groff discusses the challenges and potential of the hemp industry while showcasing his impressive hemp crop in Pennsylvania.

HOLTWOOD, Pa. — This week on the Hemp Podcast we take a short road trip to southern Lancaster County to catch up with farmer Steve Groff. "What we're looking at here, Eric, is a metaphor for the hemp industry. We're looking broken promises and contracts that didn't come to be," Groff said, leaning against a stack of round bales of hemp at his farm in Holtwood. Twelve hundred round bales. Four bales wide. Three bales high. It extends into the field for about two tenths of a mile. It's covered in black tarps and you can see it from the road. You can probably see it from space too. Steve Groff's Great Wall of Hemp. This is his 2025 hemp crop, roughly 80 acres of fiber hemp, cut and baled last fall. His 2024 crop of 60 acres sits in silage bags, on the north side of the Great Wall like sleeping giants. "You know, you add it all up, it's a million, little over a million pounds," Groff said. And so the hemp sits. Waiting for the processing infrastructure to be built in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, one of the silage bags was torn open by some birds, so Groff is using the hemp from that bag as mulch for his tomato operation. "I grow heirloom tomatoes in high tunnels, I have over 12,000…

People in this episode

Host: Eric Hurlock

Guest: Steve Groff

Topics covered

• hemp industry
• farming
• processing infrastructure
• sustainable agriculture
• heirloom tomatoes

Keywords

• hemp
• farming
• sustainable agriculture
• processing
• heirloom tomatoes
• Pennsylvania
• 2018 Farm Bill

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Holtwood, Pa., Pennsylvania

More episodes of Industrial Hemp Podcast

• Meet Ursa Alta, The New Low-THC Fiber Cultivar from Cornell AgriTech · June 10, 2026 · 37 min
• Can the Goodness of Hemp Act Fix What's Broken in Hemp? · June 5, 2026 · 34 min
• Meet NHA's New Director Sully Sullivan · May 29, 2026 · 29 min
• Farm to Flow: Trace Femcare and the Future of Hemp Fiber Tampons · May 21, 2026 · 48 min
• Stacking Up with Renewabuild Great Plains · May 13, 2026 · 25 min
• Getting From HempToday to Hemp Tomorrow with Kehrt Reyher · May 1, 2026 · 47 min