A clear majority of hemp farmers and processors support establishing a federal program to promote the crop, according to a survey by two industry groups, but not everyone supports paying for it.

The National Industrial Hemp Council and the Hemp Industries Association polled their members late last year on the question of having a checkoff program, joining the dozen or so U.S. agricultural commodities that already have one. Nearly eight out of 10 hemp growers and processors favor a checkoff program.

“This is exciting news for our industry, and exciting that there is such wide consensus in our industry to support such a program,” said Patrick Atagi, Board Chairman of the National Industrial Hemp Council.

The now-famous “Got Milk?” campaign grew out of a checkoff program, which also funds research and educational efforts. Atagi said a checkoff program would “fund much-needed research and educate consumers on the usefulness and versatility of hemp.”

The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service currently promotes 21 different agricultural industries with checkoffs. Federal marketing programs, once in place, are mandatory assessments.

The industry groups will now form a panel of representatives from the industry to discuss how the checkoff program would work. Alth0ugh there’s overwhelming interest for a hemp checkoff program, HIA and NIHC still need to convince more industry players to buy into the idea of paying for the program.

Six out of 10 farmers and processors surveyed support paying an fee for the program. The USDA, which approves or denies checkoff programs, has said it will not institute one for hemp unless stakeholders at all levels of the supply chain are in favor.

“It’s clear from the survey response that there is a broad level of excitement around the idea of a national hemp checkoff program, and significant interest in the potential return the hemp industry could see from an effective research and marketing program under USDA,” said HIA President Rick Trojan.

HIA and NIHC said 270 hemp growers and processors completed the survey.

Michael Lewis, the founder and former CEO of Sprig, a CBD beverage company, said he likes the idea of promoting the crop, noting that “it’s still shocking” how little people know about hemp.

“I think the No. 1 challenge for the industry is still education and awareness,” he told Hemp Industry Daily. “So to me, those are the best investments that any stakeholder can make is, public education and awareness.”

Ivan Moreno can be reached at [email protected]

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.”

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the Hemp Industries Association over an extraction rule that meany fear will wrongly criminalize temporary byproducts of the plant during production.

The DEA says in a filing Tuesday that HIA is challenging “a hypothetical regulation or policy concerning manufacturing byproduct” of hemp, and the case belong in an appeals court, not a U.S. district court. Law 360 first reported the development.

At issue is whether the DEA is simply updating its policies to comply with the 2018 Farm Bill, which removed low-THC cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, or whether the DEA is making an illegal power grab by saying that hemp extracts are Schedule 1 controlled substances during a portion of the extraction process when the plant’s THC levels spike above what’s allowed.

South Carolina CBD maker RE Botanicals is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Last month, a federal judge ruled against HIA and RE Botanicals on their request to force the DEA to clarify how it intends to enforce its policy over temporary hemp byproducts.