By Clint Thompson
The number of hemp growers continues to decline across Alabama and the country. It coincides with market prices not being what they once were, according to Zachary Barnes, with the Alabama Department of Ag and Industries hemp program.
“From 2020 until now, what they were fetching for a kilogram of crude CBD oil, I’ve heard numbers were as high as $8,000 to $5,000, and in 2024, the market, from what I understood, bottomed out,” Barnes said. “I was at a regulator’s meeting (recently), and not just Alabama but every other participating state, except for one state, had a decrease. That’s a nationwide trend.”
In 2025, there were 38 licensed growers, 26 licensed processors, five universities, 237.64 outdoor licensed acres and 111,660 licensed indoor square footage, equating to 2.56 indoor acres. In 2024, there were 41 growers, 27 processors and seven universities.
Barnes confirmed that this is the smallest production year in Alabama.
“The number of growers is declining but the number of acres is kind of staying the same,” Barnes said. “I think we’re kind of at our leveled off point now.”
The hemp industry began in 2019 after the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 declassified hemp as a schedule I drug and classified it as an agriculture commodity.