Hemp is a bioaccumulator, which means that it uptakes soil and air contents faster than it excretes them. This means that there is a potential for the CBD derived from hemp to retain environmental pollutants depending on where it is grown. This can create serious problems from products derived from China or other places where there are large levels of soil contamination or air pollution. China is currently the worlds largest hemp producer, and much of the CBD on the marketplace is produced overseas in places where there is less regulation regarding heavy metals. Even in the United States, there is potential for soil contamination on industrial lands, downstream of mines or other contaminated areas because hemp will accumulate toxins faster than other plants.
Hemp is hearty plant, so pesticide usage on hemp itself is generally rather minimal. The problem is that hemp, being such a new crop, is often planted on land that was recently used for other agricultural purposes. Those previous crops are very likely to have been to exposed to pesticides and the pesticides will stay in the soil for years. Hemp does an amazing job at removing and cleaning up the pesticides from the soil, but in this process will carry the pesticides into the plant and the finished product. Depending on where the hemp is grown, it may also be exposed to pesticides that are sprayed in the air. Since hemp is extracted and refined down, the pesticide levels reflected in finished products will generally be much higher than those found in other products grown in the same conditions.
Testing practices are critical to being able to ensure a safe and consistent product. We have all our CBD products third-party tested to ensure all our products are safe for consumption.