United Cannabis (OTCQB: CNAB) has announced that it has started hemp extraction services at its majority-owned processing plant in Tennessee.

The company built the 20-acre, 23,000-square-foot facility in McMinnville to provide contract manufacturing to farmers working in accord with the 2018 Federal Farm Bill and Tennessee’s Department of Agriculture’s Hemp Program.

The McMinnville operation is currently processing industrial hemp for CBD-rich distillates, oils and isolates for further processing. Fibrous bi-products generated during processing will also be collected for sale to a wide range of industrial manufacturing customers.

In the future, the facility will also offer purification, testing and processing services, as well as packaging, fulfillment, and secure storage capabilities, United Cannabis said in a statement.

The hemp industry in Tennessee has picked a speed since the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill; the state’s Department of Agriculture issuing licenses to more than 2,600 hemp growers in 2019. This represents a ten-fold increase from 2018 when they approved 226 applicants.

“This is an important addition to the United Cannabis production network as we gear up to hit 50,000 pounds of daily hemp processing in the first quarter,” stated Clifton Lambreth, the company’s chief marketing officer.

Earnest Blackmon, the CEO of United Cannabis, stated that the company is ready to meet the growing demand “by expanding our capacity in high-yield hemp farming states like Tennessee where our services provide farmers with a competitive advantage in the raw material supply chain.”

“Similar launches are on the way in South Carolina, Illinois and New York,” Blackmon noted.