As research broke over the past two weeks that cannabis products including CBD, cannabinoid acids and even synthetic cannabis compounds may prevent or treat COVID-19 infections, excitement among hemp entrepreneurs spread.

Interest in the seemingly stagnant hemp biomass, CBD and CBG markets soared to highs not seen in three years. Prices are on the rise again and hemp producers are fielding calls from a slew of interested parties hoping to cash in on the news.

Considering the ups and downs the hemp industry has struggled through since it became a legal commodity in December 2018, it’s easy to understand the enthusiasm.

It’s good to see positive COVID-19 headlines for once, especially when they are about cannabis.

But is it too early for hemp entrepreneurs to profit from research that hasn’t yet been tested in human clinical trials?

And what are the compliance and legal risks for cannabinoid product makers peddling products as COVID cures?

Researchers and industry leaders have urged caution among consumers and industry alike.

“Science is not the result of one or two studies. It’s a long process based on peer review and the opportunity for replication of results,” said Hemp Industries Association executive director Jody McGinness.

“As much as we are encouraged by studies that open up people’s eyes to the possibilities, we want to caution anybody against extrapolating from the results of early studies to any type of claims about the efficacy of cannabinoids.”

Industry ramping up anyway

For Bend, Oregon-based hemp producer Wesley Ray, Oregon State University’s study showing cannabinoid acids can prevent COVID-19 from entering human cells has validated his own work growing and processing CBDA and CBGA over the past few years.

Since news broke about the research, Ray and his partner Shannon Little have been inundated with calls and emails from retailers, formulators, distributors, recreational marijuana businesses, and even government entities, looking for raw material, crumble and tinctures to produce white label products and more.

“And then you have the bigger companies that are wanting to do some pretty crazy numbers (like) 25 kilos every two weeks,” Ray said.

He’s selling CBGa and CBDa crumbles in bulk for $2,900 per kilo or $5,000 per single kilo.

“The prices on that are obviously up. And if farmers are smart, they would hold back their biomass and not just liquidate it,” Ray said.

“I would put $20 a pound on my CBG biomass right now, just because I know how many pounds are going to go in to make a kilo and I know the input costs, and I don’t think the lab should be the only one making margins.”

Prices haven’t seemed to go up across the board yet in response to recent research results, but it’s still early and the interest is clear, according to Julie Lerner, the founder and CEO of Denver-based commodity selling platform PanXchange.

“There is no doubt that demand and inquiries are picking up for several processors in the country, but so far activity has been mostly directed toward CBDA and CBGA products,” Lerner told Hemp Industry Daily in an email.

“Demand has not yet picked up in biomass; our January prices are on par with December. However, a late-month rally pushed winterized crude prices up $5/kg this month.”

Compliance matters

The research findings supporting the role of cannabis in human health “moves the scientific conversation forward” and show the industry is one step closer to “unlocking the many benefits of cannabis,” said Asa Waldstein, principal of Boulder, Colorado-based Supplement Advisory Group, which advises herbal products and cannabis entrepreneurs on federal compliance.

That said, “it is a prohibited act to promote non-drug products as a cure for any disease or virus,” Waldstein cautioned in an email to Hemp Industry Daily.

“I urge companies to fight the urge to exploit this news to sell products.”

As has been the case with all other claims that have prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to sanction cannabis product manufacturers, anything on a commercial website or social media is considered marketing, he pointed out.

“Although unadvisable, if a company must risk posting about (cannabinoid and COVID research), they should ensure there is no mention of their product or company in the post or blog,” Waldstein said.

“This includes removing any shopping cart-linked call to actions and product pictures.”

Waldstein added that FDA and FTC authorities consider the “reasonable consumer takeaway,” which means if consumers think a company’s blog or post is about its products, the authorities do, too.

“I asked a top FTC official about ‘educational’ blogs on commercial websites. He responded, ‘What is the purpose of posting an educational blog on a commercial website, if not to sell products?’” Waldstein said.

“This further demonstrates the authority’s position when posting about disease therapies on a supplement site.”

And with the number of “cringe-worthy product claims” aiming to cash in on scientists’ research, companies promoting COVID research with links to products should consider FDA and FTC enforcement “a given,” Waldstein said.

Waldstein pointed to 25 COVID-related warning letters that the FTC sent earlier this month, showing the regulator’s “renewed dedication” to stopping companies from making misleading claims.

“The FDA/FTC makes examples of companies not following the rules, especially in areas they want to highlight,” he explained in an email.

“I predict we should see a batch of CBDA and COVID warning letters coming out in the next couple of months.”

Universities could push back, too

It’s not just government compliance companies need to consider.

Cannabis entrepreneurs that are openly promoting products in the name of university research may also be violating intellectual property laws provided to researchers, said Jay Noller, director of the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University.

“There’s this presumption that because it was published, it’s theirs to use,” Noller told Hemp Industry Daily.

“International and U.S. patent law is such that to not check in with the publisher or that institution, we’ve seen that in other industries where the presumption leads to downstream reaches for violation of that IP.”

Even in cases of publicly financed research, scientists and universities have IP rights on findings that can produce results such as inventions, scholarly publications, new plant varieties, confidential information and more – even if they are proof-of-concept or laboratory-scale prototypes that require additional research and development before they can be commercialized.

Hemp entrepreneurs therefore need to do due diligence that they aren’t violating prior IP, Noller said.

Perhaps because the makers of the only CBD drug sanctioned by the FDA, Epidiolex, aren’t in headlines suing over-the-counter CBD makers, some cannabis operators may assume they are safe to market their own CBD products.

But that’s a risky assumption, Noller said, pointing out that such cases can take years to build, as in the seven-year patent battle over smart phones between Apple and Samsung.

Further, cannabis companies should consider that investment in research could yield faster industry development than investments in marketing, Noller said.

“We saw that for three years: branding, marketing. And then you have one science paper come out on a very, very limited budget. …That’s how it’s going to work.”

“So I think we’ve we’ve been able to demonstrate, if not shame, the industry into its disproportionate attention to fantasy versus reality, and that’s truth in science.”

Laura Drotleff can be reached at laura.drotleff@hempindustrydaily.com

In the United States currently, humans can eat foods made from hemp – yet we can’t legally eat meat or eggs from animals that have eaten hemp.

But with recent action by the Hemp Feed Coalition (HFC), a Fort Collins, Colorado-based nonprofit seeking to gain federal approval for hemp and its byproducts as a source of commercial animal feed and nutrition, the industry is a little closer to seeing that become a reality.

That’s because the HFC has completed its first submission for hemp to become an approved animal-feed ingredient for consideration by the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

If approved, the ingredient application will allow hempseed meal and cake to be legally used as commercial feed for laying hens.

The submission is the culmination of a two-year effort that has included ingredient investigation of hempseed cake and meal, along with a clinical trial to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of hemp as feed for laying hens.

“One of the big opportunities for us as an industry, and one of the best ways that we can support our farmers in those ancillary markets, like our livestock producers, is by commoditizing those very nutritious and valuable byproducts that come out of the production and processing of hemp,” HFC Executive Director Hunter Buffington said during the 2021 World Ag Expo. The event is based in Tulare, California, but was held virtually this year.

The HFC focused on hempseed meal and seed cake as a first step because there are tons of the material sitting idle in farmers’ warehouses as a byproduct of the human-foods segment that is driving production of hemp grain to be crushed for oil, Buffington said.

“When you look at the nutritional composition, there’s no reason we can’t be feeding it,” she said.

But first, U.S. regulators needed data from American producers, not those from other parts of the world that have continued feeding hemp to animals for decades, she said.

To meet the rigorous standards for safety and efficacy that the FDA-CVM holds, hemp industry members from across the U.S. submitted certificates of analysis for their crops, demonstrating that the hempseed cake and meal can be consistently grown and processed.

“It really is going to take a concerted effort to not only understand the ingredient profile, to answer all the questions that FDA-CVM has about the ingredient itself, but then we also have to conduct clinical feed trials to show safety and efficacy for these products as well,” Buffington said.

“To add to that, we have an additional challenge that only American-grown and American-processed hemp, fed to animals at research institutions in the United States, can be used to present our argument for approval to FDA-CVM, so you can see why we really needed a coalition of folks to take on this challenge.”

Why animal feed?

Hemp as an animal foodstuff sounds to some like the opposite direction of where the industry should be headed, considering the implied low-value of commodities that typically make up animal feed, such as corn and soybeans.

“If you want (hemp) products to compete on a global scale with these commodities, they have to be priced competitively,” said Scott Propheter, a farmer and CBD executive in North Carolina.

“That’s a double-edged sword, because now you’re talking about taking what we all talk about as a value-added crop and making it a commodity crop … and your margins compress dramatically.”

That’s not to say farmers can’t make money off commodities, Propheter added, but ultimately, it’s not to the same scale as many farmers expect when they invest in hemp cultivation.

But looking at the potential market that hemp could capture shows why that’s not necessarily the case for animal feed, said Wendy Mosher, president and CEO of Fort Collins-based hemp plant-breeding company New West Genetics, a founding HFC member.

According to projections by Grand View Research, a San Francisco-based market research and consulting company, the animal feed market is expected to top $415 billion by 2023, up from $336 billion in 2017.

The seed and grain segment of industrial hemp is expected to expand by nearly 20% by 2027, and the animal-care segment of the industry is projected to grow by nearly 10%, according to the HFC.

Currently, 190 million tons of animal feed are produced in the United States every year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We’ve always known … that could be the greatest opportunity,” Mosher said. “Part of it is because (of) the nutrition of the grain – and if we feed it to our animals and then we consume those animals, how much healthier is everybody going to be?”

Further, hemp grain prices are being driven down by Canadian producers – making it tough for U.S. farmers to compete with their northern counterparts’ scale and history of processing – and there’s not a large enough market in the U.S. yet to sell their grain crops, Mosher said.

“There’s nowhere to sell their grain to – niche human foods cannot compete acreage-wise with animal feeds, (and) why would you not want our animals to have an alternative to soy and corn?” she said.

“All in all, it’s better for animal health and for our farmers to have a place to drop it off.”

Hemp for animal feed is not going to replace all soy, because a large percentage of animal feed is derived from soy currently.

But animal feed can edge in on that market share, while addressing consumers’ interest in genetically modified crops and other concerns that they’ve been trending toward for the past 12 years, Mosher said.

Next steps

Hemp still has the disadvantage of not being an established crop and will likely need to enter as a niche segment.

But there is time to develop the market and the supply chain while the hemp industry awaits approval from the AAFCO and FDA-CVM, Buffington said.

The animal-feed ingredient approval process typically takes up to four years, though AAFCO and FDA-CVM authorities promised to fast-track it, which could reduce the wait to 18 months to 24 years, Mosher told Hemp Industry Daily.

Meanwhile, some farmers aren’t waiting for permission from federal regulators to sell eggs from chickens fed with hemp.

Kreider Farms, an egg and dairy producer in central Pennsylvania, added a line of cage-free hemp eggs to its Chiques Creek brand last December. Kreider says its chickens are fed with 20% hempseed meal, which produces eggs with more omega-3s, lutein, vitamins B12, B2, B5, E, biotin, choline and selenium than conventionally produced eggs.

With the first application under review, the HFC is now pivoting to research on other hemp byproducts, including oil, sediment, hulls, pulp and screenings, to look at their potential as feed ingredients.

The group’s research focus will include the clinical trials necessary to add ruminants – animals such as cattle, sheep and goats – to the submitted AAFCO and FDA-CVM application for hempseed meal.

The group plans to bring together researchers, members of the hemp and feed industries and coalition advisers for additional applications.

Laura Drotleff can be reached at [email protected]

Crediting the CBD company’s forthrightness, a federal judge in New York federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Massachusetts-based Curaleaf from investors who argued the company misled them about legality of its CBD products.

The investors sued when Curaleaf’s share price fell in 2019 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent the company a warning letter for claiming its CBD products could treat a variety of diseases.

The suit was among a raft of class-action lawsuits in the past three years challenging CBD makers for allegedly misleading investors and making unfounded medical claims. The Curaleaf case was filed shortly after the FDA sent Curaleaf a warning letter.

Judge Brian M. Cogan said in his ruling Tuesday that Curaleaf “publicly and repeatedly acknowledged” in its stock listing statement that the FDA had not yet approved its CBD products for any medical purpose. Cogan said the company also noted it could be subject to enforcement action for “promotion of an unapproved drug.”

“The company clearly disclosed the risk that the FDA could act against it and that the FDA had done so to other companies selling similar products,” Cogan said.

“Describing this risk in terms of potentiality rather than certainty – when certainty of enforcement could not be known anyway – does not violate securities law.”

Law360 first reported on the decision.

After the FDA’s letter to Curaleaf on July 22, 2019, the company discontinued many of the products regulators cited, and removed some of the claims it made about its products.

Investors contended that the company did not explicitly say its products were illegal, but the judge rebuffed their argument.

“There is no requirement that a company disclose its risk in any magic words preferred by plaintiffs,” the judge said in the ruling.

An attorney for the investors told Law360 they were evaluating their next steps.

The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

“We look forward to focusing on the company’s growth and continuing to serve our customers and patients nationwide,” Curaleaf said in a statement after Cogan’s ruling.

Curaleaf also sells high-THC marijuana products in states where they are legal. Cogan also noted Curaleaf’s forthrightness on its THC business activities.

Caraleaf told investors in a 2018 Canadian filing that it “will derive a substantial portion of its revenues from the cannabis industry in certain states of the United States, which industry is illegal under United States federal law.”

A bipartisan bill that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday could push legal CBD through Congress, providing consumer access and protection while clearing the supply chain bottleneck.

The Hemp and Hemp-Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act of 2021 is sponsored by Representatives Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, and Morgan Griffith, a Republican from Virginia and has 18 more co-sponsors from both major parties. An earlier version of the legislation, introduced in 2020, had 30 bipartisan co-sponsors.

The bill has broad support from a coalition of 18 hemp industry and dietary supplement industry organizations.

If passed, the legislation would ensure a clear legal pathway to market for hemp-derived CBD and other ingredients derived from hemp, according to a joint statement from the industry coalition.

It would also direct the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use its authority and resources to set a clear regulatory framework for hemp-derived products and promote consumer safety while giving an economic boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their hemp crops.

Further, the legislation would allow hemp-derived CBD to be lawfully marketed in dietary supplements, requiring product manufacturers to comply with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, more commonly known as DSHEA. This would ensure that products are safe, properly labeled and manufactured in compliance with the same good manufacturing practices (GMPs) required for dietary supplements.

The FDA is “notoriously slow” and stalling on CBD for more than two years but the agency has also been dealing with COVID-19 for the past year, said attorney Jonathan Miller, who leads the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, an industry advocacy group.

“But other countries – Great Britain, Australia – they’ve figured out a way to regulate CBD and there should be no problem with the U.S. doing as well,” Miller told Hemp Industry Daily.

“We’ve got this whole regulatory framework already outlined for dietary supplements. We just want those same standards to be applied to CBD.”

U.S. drug regulators have withdrawn their proposal to regulate over-the-counter CBD, handing the industry another setback after years of delay from the Food and Drug Administration.

The proposal in question appears to be on pause because of the changing administration. The delay was widely anticipated but still frustrating for CBD operators awaiting the rules.

The FDA sent the proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget last July, a final stop before new regulations go public.

But the FDA withdrew its CBD proposal last Thursday, a day after President Joe Biden was inaugurated. The withdrawal came hours after the Biden administration issued a memo to all federal agencies telling them to withdraw pending rules, such as the FDA’s CBD guidance.

Details of the proposal were never released. They were sent more than a year after the FDA started a fresh review of CBD and other cannabinoids.

There is no legal deadline for the FDA to clear a path for legal over-the-counter CBD. But the agency has repeatedly confirmed that they know the product is commonly sold and that regulatory safety standards are overdue.

The Trump White House OMB reportedly met to discuss new CBD rules with CBD makers and retailers including GW Pharmaceuticals and chain retailer General Nutrition Centers (GNC).

The FDA did not immediately return a message Monday from Hemp Industry Daily asking about the delay.

(Editor’s note: This story is part of a recurring series of commentaries from professionals connected to the hemp industry. Havens co-chairs the Cannabis Law and Food, Beverage and Agribusiness Practices at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr law firm in Washington DC.)

The hemp industry has been waiting with bated breath for the release of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Cannabidiol Enforcement Policy Draft Guidance.

FDA sent the draft to the White House Office of Management and Budget last July. Of all FDA documents currently under review at the OMB, the CBD policy has been pending the longest. And it does not appear that the OMB will clear the document during the waning days of the Trump Administration, meaning that it will be up to the OMB under President-Elect Joe Biden to decide what to do with it.

Despite many predictions about what the document might contain, it appears that no one outside of FDA or the White House has yet seen the guidance.

Although FDA’s priorities could change once President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated next Wednesday, FDA’s approach to CBD is unlikely to shift materially, if at all.

In fact, although Biden has yet to name his pick for FDA Commissioner, one potential candidate seems to be Dr. Amy Abernethy, who currently serves as the Agency’s principal deputy commissioner and leads FDA’s CBD Working Group.

Assuming Biden nominates Dr. Abernethy, we might expect a continuation of FDA’s deliberate and protracted review of CBD. Regardless, it seems that the White House could clear the enforcement policy sometime this year, perhaps mid-second quarter. Again, though, it is not yet clear what the guidance will contain.

One theme that FDA has focused on continuously – from its May 2019 CBD hearing to the November 2020 sex and gender scientific conference to FDA comments in recent days (including by Dr. Abernethy) – is that it needs more data regarding CBD product safety.

Industry is cautiously optimistic that FDA’s next CBD sampling report (also expected this year) will show that leading products sold in chain retail outlets are labeled appropriately and accurately; the results contained in the last report to Congress were not representative of the industry, in that FDA tested only products sold online that made disease claims.

Presuming the CBD enforcement policy is released and is not the panacea that some hope it will be (i.e., it is not a complete 180-degree turn from FDA’s current view), it is expected that some in Congress will renew their push for hemp-derived CBD to be permitted as a dietary ingredient for use in supplements.

Congress steps in

H.R. 8179 – a bill to permit hemp, CBD derived from hemp, and any other ingredient derived from hemp as dietary ingredients – was introduced last year but didn’t come to a vote; a new version will likely be introduced for consideration by the current Congress. Some in Congress might wait to see if FDA’s enforcement policy addresses the legislation’s goals. It will be interesting to see how much Congress listens to FDA’s suggestions on hemp and its derivatives as dietary ingredients, including dosing suggestions and research requirements before ingredients can be used. In its “technical comments” to H.R. 8179, FDA appeared to differ greatly from the approach some members of Congress were pursuing.

While reasonable people can disagree about the best approach to federal CBD policy – legislative reform, formal FDA enforcement discretion, FDA notice-and-comment rulemaking, some combination thereof, or something entirely different – most everyone can agree that federal uniformity is preferable to the current state-by-state, and even locality-by-locality patchwork that is administratively burdensome for industry, at best, and dangerous from a consumer-litigation exposure perspective, at worst.

Another benefit to uniformity is that compliance with a robust, consistent federal standard would help ferret out noncompliant firms, thus elevating the profile of the entire industry. Because of inconsistent state and local standards, and even more inconsistent enforcement of the same, consumer experience can vary, especially when it comes to products sold exclusively online.

Despite the clear benefits of federal uniformity, it is important to not fall into the trap of thinking that any type of uniformity is preferable to the current landscape.

In discussions with industry stakeholders, it’s not uncommon to hear statements like “as soon as we get clarity from FDA, everything will be easier.”

FDA has been quite clear about what is permitted when it comes to CBD and what is not. Arguably, we know exactly where the FDA stands, and the devil we know (i.e., no CBD food or supplement products, but unless you make aggressive disease claims, you likely will not hear from FDA) might be better than the devil we don’t know (e.g., FDA adopting arbitrarily low limits of CBD per serving).

Clarity from FDA isn’t needed; sensible CBD policy is.

Next steps

As mentioned above, FDA’s last CBD sampling report to Congress provided little valuable insight into how most of the CBD industry complies with robust product standards.

As any hemp operator who has worked with a national distributor or sold products in a national chain store can attest, labeling compliance, rigorous third-party testing, evidence of insurance, and brand regulatory support, among other things, are prerequisites.

Said differently, brands that sell their products in major retail outlets are already responsibly operating, even in the absence of national uniform regulations.

It has been more than two years hemp since hemp was made a legal crop. Enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill was a major win for the hemp industry.

However, it was only a half-victory. Given FDA’s indication that CBD rulemaking could take several years, and in light of the fact that the cannabidiol enforcement policy – even if it is helpful to industry – will not be a permanent solution, it is incumbent upon Congress to amend existing law to permit certain CBD ingestible products, presuming such products comply with sensible labeling and safety standards.

Otherwise, the hemp industry will continue to suffer as a result of end-product format restrictions. The confluence of the release of FDA’s CBD enforcement policy and the reintroduction of legislation to permit CBD as a dietary ingredient could mean that the framework for a national uniform CBD policy standard could be in hand by this summer.

Jonathan Havens can be reached at [email protected]

Federal food and drug officials said Friday that they plan to fill in current CBD research gaps with “real world data” — but industry advocates are frustrated that regulators haven’t done enough to clear up the rules, which has caused supply-chain bottlenecks while leaving consumers to navigate an increasing field of unregulated products.

An update from U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy, who leads the FDA’s CBD Working Group, said that the agency evaluates CBD like any other substance, “under a regulatory framework defined by law and with rigorous scientific evidences as a basis for both our regulatory approached and information we communicate.”

But more than two years after Congress made hemp a legal crop, FDA still doesn’t have “clear answers to important questions,” about whether any potential adverse reactions are associated with CBD and any risks associated with long-term use, the regulators said.

Novel data sources and “rigorous analytical methods” from various sources present an opportunity to build more scientific evidence for the use and safety of CBD, according to Hahn and Abernathy.

“We think that real-world data on CBD use and safety has a crucial role alongside data from other types of studies to fill in the current gaps in our understanding,” they wrote.

FDA said while appreciated, existing efforts underway such as small observational studies “are not adequate to fill the outstanding knowledge gaps,” and are of limited use for making decisions about CBD and public health, and evidence gaps still remain.

“Filling these gaps will not be a trivial exercise but will require high-quality data analyzed using robust methods,” the administrators said.

Industry is critical

The FDA update went on to outline the agency’s progress on CBD regulations since the passage of the 2018 Bill, including engagement with industry and consumers, such as draft guidance for clinical research of cannabis-derived pharmaceutical drugs, as well as product sampling and testing products on the market.

“We are currently working with a third party on conducting the second phase of the sampling plan that will involve a much larger sample set (1000-3000) that includes collection of CBD-containing products of various types,” Hahn and Abernethy wrote.

The FDA’s statement drew criticism from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an advocacy group representing interests within the dietary supplement industry.

CRN’s president, Steve Mister, said that the FDA’s statement ” misses the point entirely” andwas “nothing more than an end-of-administration desk-clearing exercise from an FDA that has failed to lead in this crucial policy area.

“Because of the FDA’s failure to act, the public continues to be exposed to possible harms by a wild-west market that continues to expand without meaningful regulatory bounds,” Mister said.

Mixed signals

The FDA sent CBD enforcement policy draft guidance to the White House in July, which has not advanced further due to the continued escalation of coronavirus infections within the U.S. and a highly divisive presidential election.

In the absence of regulations, the agency has continued to issue warning letters to CBD companies making unsubstantiated medical claims about their products related to coronavirus and other diseases and maladies.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced its first crackdown on deceptive claims in the CBD market in late December, issuing fines and sanctions to six manufacturers accused of misleading consumers about the health benefits of the cannabis extract.

In November, FDA regulators held a multidisciplinary conference on CBD and sex and gender differences to highlight both existing and needed research to address questions surrounding these products.

Could hemp baby greens be the next must-have superfood heading for consumers’ salad bowls?

Researchers around the country are studying the viability of another potential revenue stream for producers, beyond the grain, fiber and flower crops for which the hemp plant has become most closely associated.

Hemp baby greens are being grown and taste-tested as a potential new high-value, niche leafy greens crop to add to the consumer’s plate.

But the legality of hemp baby greens as a crop is unclear. While hempseed and grain foods have been deemed generally recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there is still no legal precedent set under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s interim final rule for hemp production for the plant to be produced and marketed as a leafy green yet, according to Robert Masson, an agriculture extension agent with the University of Arizona’s Yuma County Extension.

Field-grown crops

In the “winter salad bowl” produce-growing region in California-bordering Yuma, Arizona, where 90% of the nation’s leafy greens are produced in the winter months, consumers lined up to taste-test hemp baby greens and determine whether they may be added to the bagged salads the region produces for national distribution.

Arizona is the No. 2 producer of lettuce in the U.S., after California, and most of the produce that’s grown in Arizona is farmed in Yuma County.

“We have the cropping system for it; we have … mechanical harvesters that can harvest it; we have coolers and we have shipping infrastructure to feed the nation with leafy greens, lettuce, romaine lettuce, iceberg lettuce,” Masson told Hemp Industry Daily. “That’s our cash crop here.”

Masson planted 17 different grain and fiber hemp varieties in the Yuma trial fields, maintaining the crop for 18 days before the hemp leafy greens were harvested.

Hemp baby greens “grows like a weed,” Masson said. The crop was grown to the three-leaf stage and even flowered, which helped neutralize some of the bitter taste of the leaf.

Hemp baby greens may also offer a high nutritional value, though research in this area is ongoing.

“When you eat it, it’s very dense,” Masson said of the hemp baby greens “You can feel the fiber moving through you; even though it’s nice and tender, it still has a lot of fiber to it.”

Taste tests

Out of 17 varieties, five were found to have the best taste qualities, based on a taste test conducted by 89 volunteers.

The five greens were sampled along with common leafy greens like romaine, kale and baby-leaf spinach for comparison. Another sample was made into a hemp-greens pesto.

According to Masson, consumers liked the hemp baby greens, reporting minty and fruity flavors, with floral influences, while hemp’s crispness was rated similar to kale, and consumers said hemp had more “peach fuzz” than other greens.

In overall likeability, greens like romaine and spinach rated higher than hemp, but on a scale of 1 to 5, hemp rated right in the middle at a 3.3. Consumers liked hemp better than kale, Masson said.

Meanwhile, some growers in the region are excited about the prospect of a new leafy greens crop. Farmers in the area steered clear of growing hemp for CBD, seeing it as a potential “boom-bust” similar to jojoba, Masson said.

“Most of the farmers here are very conservative and so they’ve been neutral about (hemp baby greens); however, there’s been a couple of very large farmers and solid processing centers that really want to do it,” Masson said.

Based on early trials, hemp baby greens appear to have a good shelf-life, and nearby Yuma lettuce processing facilities are running their own tests on post-harvest freshness and quality, he said.

“They’re all very tight-lipped because they know that if, if this turns into something big, they need to do their homework now and not tell anyone so when it becomes legal, they can just drop it and go,” Masson said. “But what I’m hearing is that it’s doing very well for shelf life.”

Cost considerations

Hemp baby greens in Masson’s trials germinated faster than baby-leaf spinach, which is densely planted at some 3 million seeds per acre.

At that density, hemp producers could be concerned that baby-greens producers would compete for seed supply. That’s a serious consideration for a crop with relatively pricey seeds.

Henry Huntington, president and CEO of lef Farms, a greenhouse leafy-greens producer in Loudon, New Hampshire, said the high cost of hempseed could affect the plant’s viability as a profitable baby green.

“Baby greens are so young that it takes a lot of seed to produce a pound of greens; since it is a one-time crop, seed cost is a significant consideration,” Huntington told Hemp Industry Daily.

But Masson said he is working with local seed producers to build up the inventory. Based on trials and consumer reaction, Masson predicts hemp baby greens will be an iconic crop that will sell like “straight fire.”

“Most vegetables are just fashion – it’s the spring dress that you have to sell in spring – it can’t last to the fall because nobody’s going to buy it and it’ll go bad,” Masson said.

“I can’t think of a more fashionable leafy green than the marijuana leaf. It’s iconic,” he said. “People don’t have tattoos of romaine lettuce – people have tattoos of marijuana leaves.”

Growing indoors

Masson said the University of Arizona study was inspired by a two-year study at Cornell University led by horticulture graduate student Renyun Mi that looks at the production requirements and sensory qualities of the novel crop.

Cornell University’s Controlled Environment Agriculture division is studying new and novel crops that can be produced in indoor environments, according to horticultural trade publication Greenhouse Grower.

In a series of experiments by Mi and a team of fellow Cornell researchers, hemp seeds were planted in plastic seedling flats and harvested 13 to 18 days after sowing, when stems are less fibrous and leaves are tender.

The Cornell team used cultivars from hemp grain and fiber varieties and ran trials for:

• The best cultivars.
• Sowing densities and the resulting fresh and dry weight.
• The effect of seed size on yield.

Following the growing experiments, researchers asked a panel of consumers to evaluate six baby leaf lettuce species based on taste, texture, after-taste and appearance. The species included hemp, kale, romaine lettuce, butter lettuce, spinach and arugula.

According to the Cornell panel, hemp baby greens had a “relatively mild taste, with unique fruity and floral flavors, and a soft, slightly fuzzy texture.”

The Cornell research team noted that there is need for additional research, breeding, cultivar selection and cultural management techniques to fully optimize this novel crop.

One of the objectives of Mi’s work was to develop a standard protocol to optimize yield and quality of baby leaf hemp production, including cultivar screening, sowing density and seed size. The study was published on the Basel, Switzerland-based, peer-reviewed academic publishing index, MDPI.

The potential crop is so new that many indoor leafy-greens producers haven’t even had time to consider it yet. Huntington, the New Hampshire greens producer, said another concern for production in a greenhouse environment is humidity. He noted that cannabis growers often struggle with powdery mildew.

“Our baby greens grow so fast, they transpire like little fog machines,” Huntington said. “I would worry about compatibility.”

Following food standards

If adopted for food production, hemp baby greens would be subject to the same food safety rules and traceability standards developed under the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act.

The leaf- greens industry has been subject to wide scrutiny in recent years, following widescale recalls of romaine lettuce and spinach after E. coli foodborne illnesses were linked to lettuces originating from Yuma County in Arizona and in the Central Valley of California.

The leafy greens segment of the produce industry has developed a full-scale effort to focus on food safety under the California-based Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, which producers must join if they want to have any hope of selling leafy greens crops, according to Masson.

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the launch of a multi-year food safety improvement study that aims to enhance understanding of the ecology of human pathogens in the environment that may cause foodborne illness outbreaks.

Laura Drotleff can be reached at [email protected]