The U.S. Department of Agriculture is renaming its trade advisory committee in order to include hemp prominently among a select number of specialty crops. This reflects the USDA’s view of cannabis as an extremely valuable commodity.
Hemp, its derivatives such as CBD were legalized by the 2018 Farm Bill. USDA has worked closely with the industry over the past few years to normalize and support the crop. It is now symbolically recognizing the hemp plant as a member of one of six Agricultural Technical Advisory Committees.
The USDA has added a hemp industry representative to the group, but it is now being renamed in order to better reflect the sector. The ATAC will now be known as the ATAC for Trade in Tobacco, Cotton, Peanuts and Hemp, according to a department notice that is set to appear in the Federal Register this Thursday.
Patrick Atagi was named to the advisory committee in 2021. Kevin Latner was a former marketing executive for NIHC and was appointed to a separate ATAC focusing on processed foods.
Atagi, in a telephone interview with Marijuana Moment on Wednesday, said that the committee’s renaming was a “huge acknowledgement” by federal officials to “recognize hemp as a commodity and trade product and agricultural commodity”.
He said, “It is a historic step.” Hemp has been added to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s and U.S. Trade Representative’s Office nomenclature.
The new notice states that the purpose of these committees, jointly appointed by USDA, the U.S. Trade Representative, is “to provide detailed technical and policy advice, information and recommendations regarding trade barriers and trade agreements. They will also perform other advisory functions related to U.S. agricultural policy issues.”
Members are asked to provide comments on trade negotiations and review sensitive information about trade policy throughout the year. All committees must, in addition to their advisory duties, provide a detailed report to the USTR, USDA, Congress and the President at the end of the negotiations for any trade agreement.
is soliciting nominees to serve on each of the six ATACs and its Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee. The nominations will be accepted up until the expiration of the charter term of four years in June 2027.
The hemp industry is hoping that the 2023 Farm Bill will allow them to improve on existing federal policies and to ease restrictions for farmers and manufacturers.
According to USDA , the hemp industry took a big hit in 2018. The crop’s value dropped dramatically across all metrics. The downturn has been attributed by stakeholders to the absence of Food and Drug Administration regulations regarding marketing valuable hemp derivatives like CBD oil. The FDA has said that Congress must step in and enact these rules.
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Rep. James Comer, R-KY, chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee sent a letter in March to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, announcing a probe into the agency’s decisions and criticizing the “insufficient reason for inaction” on CBD regulations .
Advocates are pressing Congress to pass legislation that addresses the issue. One such bill is a bipartisan one from Reps. Morgan Griffith, (R-VA), and Angie Craig, (D-MN), which would create a regulatory path for hemp derivatives including CBD.
Griffith and other bipartisan legislators wrote a separate letter to the FDA commissioner in 2013. The lawmakers expressed their frustration at the “completely inadequate response” that the FDA provided to their bill requesting hemp-derived CBD be allowed and regulated as an additive in food.
A group of House members introduced a bill that sought to stop what they called a “discriminatory federal policy” that prohibits people with previous felony drug convictions, from owning or running legal hemp businesses.
In this session, bipartisan legislators in the House of Representatives and Senate introduced bills that would ease regulatory burdens on farmers who grow industrial hemp to be used for other purposes.
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The post USDA Renames Trade Committee to Recognize Hemp as A Key Specialty Crop first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
