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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Sunday, March 23, 2025
A project that aims to create standards and build up the hemp building and construction industry, a market advocates say holds major environmental and economic potential, was selected for federal funding. While industrial hemp has made several advancements, advocates are worried an amendment included in the House farm bill could cause havoc and limit further growth.
Twenty-one state attorneys general are pressing House and Senate Ag Committee leaders to rewrite the farm bill’s hemp regulations, saying they have opened up a “massive gray market” for hemp-derived products as potent as cannabis.
Only five years ago Kevin Ortenblad was growing hydroponic lettuce indoors, near New London, Minnesota. The arugula, romaine, and iceberg greens he produced were some of the most flavorful to be found, according to the grocery stores who bought them.
The Food and Drug Administration is calling for a new “regulatory pathway” to allow for the use of use of cannabidiol, or CBD, in dietary supplements and food additives, after concluding that “it is not apparent how CBD products could meet safety standards” for those products.
The Agriculture Department mailed survey codes to all of the nation’s farmers and ranchers on Tuesday with an invitation to participate in the 2022 Census of Agriculture.
The Biden administration is pouring $2.8 billion, far more than originally planned, into a series of pilot projects aimed at developing markets for climate-smart commodities in every state and across a wide range of commodities and farm types. Another $700 million for smaller projects will be awarded later.
Four years after the farm bill legalized industrial hemp nationwide, crop acreage is falling as the industry struggles to get regulatory clarity and infrastructure for products derived from the plant’s grain and fiber.
A farm bill program that supports the production and marketing of fruits, vegetables, nuts and other crops swelled to $97 million last year, thanks to an influx of stimulus funding. But lawmakers are being asked to expand eligibility for the program when the farm bill is up for reauthorization, and that worries some in the sector.
Hemp supporters are touting the crop's myriad uses and soil-nurturing properties while pushing some ideas for increasing its viability as Congress prepares to update the 2018 farm bill that sparked a growing interest.
The value of the U.S. industrial hemp crop in 2021 was $824 million, the National Agricultural Statistics Service said in its first report on the cannabis crop that was legalized in the 2018 farm bill.
