Southern California will soon be home to Mojave Desert-based organic hemp production through a newly created joint venture between natural resources company Cadiz Inc. and cannabis cultivator Glass House Farms. Scott Slater, president and CEO of Cadiz told Cheddar Tuesday the company is "bullish on the long-term prospects for organic, California-based CBD and hemp."
The two companies are creating SoCal Hemp, which will grow the industrial hemp in the desert, a location Slater said is beneficial as there are "not a lot of bugs in the desert," more hours of sunlight throughout the year, and "organic and pristine" soil.
"Our intention is to control our distribution chain so that we would raise hemp, process our CBD and then use it in forward retail distribution," Slater said of the new partnership.
With SoCal Hemp now entering its commercial phase after two test phases, it is expecting to cultivate 200 acres in the spring and 1,000 acres by the end of 2020.
"We do not expect to, or want to, compete with the super-large players who are going to be doing tens of thousands of acres of industrial hemp," he said. "Our intention would be to split up what we have, to maximize our value in the CBD space for our own products and distribution, and then to have arrangements with forward-thinking companies that are interested in substituting hemp for cotton fiber," Slater said.
SoCal Hemp intends to use some of the crops as a potential substitute for cotton and some for CBD, Slater said.
"There is a strong belief that the use of hemp from farm to fiber can be an important substitute for things like cotton," he said, noting that the cultivation of hemp uses a relatively low amount of water when compared to crops like hay.
"Ours is really a niche. We want to be associated with organic, sun-raised, California hemp," Slater said.
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A rare magnum of Dom Pérignon Vintage 1961 champagne that was specially produced for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana has failed to sell during an auction. Danish auction house Bruun Rasmussen handled the bidding Thursday. The auction's house website lists the bottle as not sold. It was expected to fetch up to around $93,000. It is one of 12 bottles made to celebrate the royal wedding. Little was revealed about the seller. The auction house says the bids did not receive the desired minimum price.
The New York Times and President Donald Trump are fighting again. The news outlet said Wednesday it won't be deterred by Trump's “false and inflammatory language” from writing about the 79-year-old president's health. The Times has done a handful of stories on that topic recently, including an opinion column that said Trump is “starting to give President Joe Biden vibes.” In a Truth Social post, Trump said it might be treasonous for outlets like the Times to do “FAKE” reports about his health and "we should do something about it.” The Republican president already has a pending lawsuit against the newspaper for its past reports on his finances.
OpenAI has appointed Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its first chief of revenue. Dresser will oversee global revenue strategy and help businesses integrate AI into daily operations. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently emphasized improving ChatGPT, which now has over 800 million weekly users. Despite its success, OpenAI faces competition from companies like Google and concerns about profitability. The company earns money from premium ChatGPT subscriptions but hasn't ventured into advertising. Altman had recently announced delays in developing new products like AI agents and a personal assistant.
President Donald Trump says he will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China. Trump said Monday on his social media site that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping and “President Xi responded positively!” There had been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips into China as it could help them to compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities. But there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.
