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On Friday, the USDA published a long, long awaited Final Rule regulating the production of hemp in the United States. The Final Rule, which arrives more than two years after Congress first allowed for the widespread cultivation, processing, distribution, sale, and use of hemp, establishes a comprehensive regime governing all aspects of this nascent industry.
The hemp industry has been operating under an interim final rule since October 2019, which our team wrote about at the time. The interim final rule’s key provisions included licensing requirements; recordkeeping requirements for maintaining information about the land where hemp is produced; procedures for testing the THC concentration levels for hemp; procedures for disposing of non-compliant plants; compliance provisions; and procedures for handling violations.
Representative image The agency’s final rule includes provisions on compliance, procedures for handling violations, and testing of THC levels.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently published a new final rule to regulate domestic hemp production that builds upon the agency’s interim final rule (IFR) created in October 2019.
“With the publication of this final rule, USDA brings to a close a full and transparent rule-making process that started with a hemp listening session in March 2019,” USDA Marketing and Regulatory Programs Under Secretary Greg Ibach said in a release. “USDA staff have taken the information you have provided through three comment periods and from your experiences over a growing season to develop regulations that meet Congressional intent while providing a fair, consistent, science-based program for states, tribes, and individual producers.”
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The United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA-AMS) published its final rule establishing the Domestic Hemp Production Program on January 19, 2021, effective March 22, 2021. The final rule supersedes the interim regulations issued by USDA on October 31, 2019, in response to the 2018 Farm Bill, which directed USDA to establish a national regulatory framework for hemp production in the United States.
Given the final rule’s timing, it is likely that it will be subject to a regulatory freeze on the first day of the Biden Administration, January 20, 2021. This freeze may provide additional opportunities for stakeholders to work with the new administration on issues with the Domestic Hemp Production Program.