Politics
USDA Adds Another Hemp Industry Representative To Trade Committee To Promote The Crop Globally
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) have added another hemp industry executive to a federal trade advisory committee to help bolster efforts to promote U.S.-grown cannabis around the world.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and USTR Representative Katherine Tai announced on Thursday that they have appointed Dylan Summers, vice president of government affairs for the CBD company Lazarus Naturals, to their Agricultural Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade in Tobacco, Cotton, Peanuts and Hemp.
Summers is one of four hemp industry stakeholders on the 14-member ATAC, alongside 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.
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.
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.
As the latest member, Summers will serve as a hemp representative on the ATAC until at least 2028.
“The advisory committee system was created by Congress to ensure that U.S. agricultural stakeholders have input and insight into U.S. trade policy and negotiating objectives,” USDA said in an advisory. “Applications for committee membership are encouraged at any time and will be considered for future appointments.”
In recognition of hemp’s growing role in the agriculture sector, USDA and USTR formally renamed the ATAC to include last year 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.
This latest appointment comes about a month after USDA awarded $745,000 to 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 is being 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 now facing uncertainties as congressional lawmakers on the House side advance 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’s moved through committee could also “create confusion” for the industry due to a lack of clarity around the type of allowable products.
Meanwhile, the Farm Bill that advanced through the House Agriculture Committee in May also contains provisions that would reduce regulatory barriers for certain hemp farmers and scale-back a ban on industry participation by people with prior drug felony convictions.
Specifically, it would make it so USDA, states and tribal entities could choose to eliminate a policy that prevents people with felony drug convictions in the past 10 years from being licensed to produce industrial hemp.
Lawmakers and stakeholders have also been eyeing a number of other proposals that could be incorporated into the Farm Bill—and which could come up as proposed amendments as the proposal moves through the legislative process—including measures to free up hemp businesses to legally market products like CBD as dietary supplements or in the food supply.
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Recent USDA data showed a slight rebound in the hemp economy in 2023—the result of a survey that the department mailed to thousands of farmers across the U.S. in January. The first version of the department’s hemp report was released in early 2022, setting a “benchmark” to compare to as the industry matures.
Bipartisan lawmakers and industry stakeholders have sharply criticized FDA for declining to enact regulations for hemp-derived CBD, which they say is largely responsible for the economic stagnation.
To that end, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in April, where he faced questions about the agency’s position that it needed additional congressional authorization to regulate the non-intoxicating cannabinoid.
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.
Photo courtesy of Brendan Cleak.
