The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) have added more hemp industry stakeholders to key trade advisory committees to promote the crop globally.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and USTR Representative Katherine Tai announced last week that they’ve appointed two new members who work with the hemp industry to join its Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade in Tobacco, Cotton, Peanuts and Hemp.
The appointees are Brian Furnish of Furnish Farms, a member of the National Hemp Growers Association (NHGA), and Michael Klumpp of MAK Enterprises, which cultivates and processes hemp to produce CBD products.
They will be joining a growing list of hemp-adjacent industry experts on various ATACs.
Last August, for example, the departments appointed Dylan Summers, vice president of government affairs for the CBD company Lazarus Naturals, to join the Trade in Tobacco, Cotton, Peanuts and Hemp ATAC.
Summers and the latest appointees are joining National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) President Patrick Atagi, NIHC board member Patricia Sheikh and the Oregon Hemp Commission’s Eric Pike, who also founded the CBD company Root Origins, on the committee.
The ATAC focused on tobacco, cotton, peanuts and hemp is one of six advisory committees under USDA and USTRE that offer the government technical advice about specific agricultural commodities and products.
“The advisory committee system was created by Congress in 1974 to ensure that U.S. agricultural stakeholders have input and insight into U.S. trade policy and negotiating objectives,” USDA and USTR said. “Members consult and advise USDA and USTR on U.S. policy that impacts global access to valuable markets.”
A former marketing executive at NIHC, Kevin Latner, was appointed to a separate ATAC focused on processed foods in 2020. But he’s since left NIHC and is now affiliated with a group that deals with leather materials, while still serving on the committee.
In recognition of hemp’s growing role in the agriculture sector, USDA and USTR formally renamed the ATAC in 2023 to include the name of the crop. Previously, the first hemp appointees served on what was then called the ATAC for Trade in Tobacco, Cotton and Peanuts.
Meanwhile, USDA is also set to launch its latest annual survey to hemp farmers across the country this month in an effort to better understand the state of the industry.
The department said the surveys are meant to “collect information on the total planted and harvested area, yield, production, and value of hemp in the United States in 2024.”
As the nation’s hemp industry continues to mature, USDA is also making what it calls “improvements” to a federal hemp crop insurance program. The changes, which take effect next year, ease certain crop-rotation requirements and remove smoke damage as a cause of covered loss.
Separately, the department recently announced it is delaying enforcement of a rule requiring hemp growers to test their crops exclusively at labs registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), citing “setbacks” at the agency that have led to “inadequate” access to such facilities.
This is the third year in a row that USDA has delayed enforcement of the lab testing policy for hemp required under the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized the crop.
In August, USDA also advised stakeholders of a policy change in China to impose tighter regulations on hemp-derived CBD, though it said the new rules were expected to benefit the industry.
Two years after hemp and its derivatives were federally legalized in the U.S. under the 2018 Farm Bill, China agreed to a trade deal that required it to buy significantly more of the non-intoxicating cannabis crop from U.S. sources. That agreement expired in 2022, however.
USDA also awarded $745,000 to the National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) to support efforts to promote the industry internationally in emerging markets across the world. In 2020, USDA awarded NIHC $200,000 as part of a different grant program.
The latest grant round was distributed during a precarious time for the hemp industry. While a USDA report found that the market started to rebound in 2023 after suffering significant losses the prior year, it’s still facing uncertainties as congressional lawmakers have advanced bills that would effectively ban most consumable hemp-based cannabinoid products—a major sector of the cannabis economy.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in a report in June that hemp provisions included in one spending bill that moved through committee could also “create confusion” for the industry due to a lack of clarity around the type of allowable products.
Senate Democrats recently released the long-awaited draft of 2024 Farm Bill that contained several proposed changes to federal hemp laws—including provisions to amend how the legal limit of THC is measured and reducing regulatory barriers for farmers who grow the crop for grain or fiber. But certain stakeholders are concerned that part of the intent of the legislation is to “eliminate a whole range of products” that are now sold in the market.
One key component of the legislation concerns the definition of hemp. As currently enacted, a crop is considered federally legal hemp if it contains no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight. That would be revised under the new bill, making it so hemp would have to be tested for “total THC” content, including cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC and THC-A, and not just delta-9.
That could theoretically lead to a significant upheaval of the hemp industry as it has evolved since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, restricting not only the varieties of plants that could be cultivated but also the products that would be permitted in the marketplace. Lawmakers have been increasingly targeting intoxicating cannabinoid products that have proliferated in recent years.
The new draft bill would also create a specific definition for “industrial hemp,” which includes fiber, stalks, grain, oil, seeds and other components of the plant that “will not be used in the manufacturing or synthesis of natural or synthetic cannabinoid products.”
USDA is also reportedly revoking hemp licenses for farmers who are simultaneously growing marijuana under state-approved programs, underscoring yet another policy conflict stemming from the ongoing federal prohibition of some forms of the cannabis plant.
For the time being, the hemp industry continues to face unique regulatory hurdles that stakeholders blame for the crop’s value plummeting in the short years since its legalization. Despite the economic conditions, however, a recent report found that the hemp market in 2022 was larger than all state marijuana markets, and it roughly equaled sales for craft beer nationally.
Meanwhile, internally at USDA, food safety workers are being encouraged to exercise caution and avoid cannabis products, including federally legal CBD, as the agency observes an “uptick” in positive THC tests amid “confusion” as more states enact legalization.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) have added more hemp industry stakeholders to key trade advisory committees to promote the crop globally. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and USTR Representative Katherine Tai announced last week that they’ve appointed two new members who work with the hemp industry Read More
