This week on the Lancaster Farming Hemp Podcast, we talk with James Forbes and Rich Selby from Tiber Fiber, a hemp processor near St. Louis with one facility in Fenton, Missouri, and another just across the Mississippi River in Sauget, Illinois.

“We have a unique symbiotic relationship with our farmers in which we extend grower contracts and agreements along with feedstock and agronomy support to ensure that our farmers here in the Midwest are successful in growing the crop that we need to feed our hemp fiber processing plant,” said Forbes, co-founder and chief operations officer at Tiger Fiber.

Selby is a co-founder of the company, the de facto chief financial officer, and he manages the agronomy program with Forbes.

The partners met at the University of Missouri and founded Tiger Fiber with Jerred Killoren in 2018.

In this episode, Selby and Forbes tell the story of the company, describe the processing facilities, explain how they contract with farmers, and share how they handle the challenge of building a company in a new industry.

Selby said one of the options their farmers can choose is price per pound. He said they’re contracting with a farm in Illinois that knocked it out of the park.

“They showed me and all the rest of us how to farm it,” he said. “And they did 50 acres and they chose the price per pound option. And they made more money than they could make with corn and soybeans.”

Tiger Fiber https://tigerfiberhemp.com/

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