Hemp was lauded as a climate-smart commodity for its use as a construction material by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack this week as he highlighted new funding opportunities for farmers.

Speaking at a university in Missouri, Vilsack pointed to hemp Monday when he announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will invest $1 billion in climate-smart commodities.

The new Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities fund will go to farmers, ranchers and forest landowners who use climate-smart practices, Vilsack said.

“For far too long in rural America, we’ve taken products of the land and from the land, we’ve shipped them someplace else, where opportunity is created someplace else, where wealth is created someplace else,” Vilsack said.

“With this opportunity, we now have a chance to change it from an extraction effort to a circular effort. The ability to essentially create climate-smart commodities, the opportunity to convert waste into wide variety of bio-based materials. I saw some of them today – hemp in construction material, for example.”

“Those processing facilities can be located right where the crops are being grown.

“They can be sustainably produced; they can be a higher value; they can create jobs in rural communities; they can increase farm income; they can expand population centers in rural places, taking pressure off our urban centers; they can restore life and vitality in our small towns.

“That’s the opportunity side of this – we just need to understand the opportunity we have, and we need to fully seize it.”

The USDA defines a climate-smart commodity as a commodity crop produced using practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon.

The USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation will be used to fund pilot projects to provide incentives to:

• Implement climate-smart production practices, activities and systems on working lands.
• Measure or quantify, monitor and verify the carbon and greenhouse-gas benefits associated with those practices.
• Develop markets and promote the resulting climate-smart commodities.

Applications will be taken in two groups, sorted by the size of the proposals. Deadlines are:

• April 8 for the first funding pool (proposals from $5 million to $100 million).
• May 27 for the second funding pool (proposals from $250,000 to $4,999,999).

Learn more about eligibility and how to apply here.

Socially disadvantaged farmers including those in the hemp industry are in line for new debt-relief funds in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of 2021.

The legislation, which passed in the U.S. Senate Saturday and awaits changes and a final vote in the House, directs the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make payments to Black farmers and farmers of color that are equal to 120% of all direct loans and USDA-backed loans.

The measure defines eligible farmers as anyone in “a group whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice.” The extra funds are meant to cover taxes from debt.

Loans from USDA help farmers buy supplies and equipment needed for production, but they haven’t always been equitably distributed.

The USDA had developed a backlog of more than 14,000 discrimination complaints by 2009, many from Black farmers who claimed that the agency had withheld loans because of their race, according to The Counter, an independent food systems newsletter.

Civil rights leaders criticized President Biden’s nomination of newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, because of his role in the USDA’s foreclosure on Black farmers and inequitable farm loan distribution during his previous stint during the Obama Administration.

The provision in the relief bill is similar to the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act, a bill introduced in the Senate last month by Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Proponents of the debt relief measure say that it’s a good first step to restore the 85% drop in Black-owned agricultural land over the past century, according to the Pew Charitable Trust.

Another pending Senate bill, the Justice for Black Farmers Act, would provide more support for Black farmers, including issuing land grants to make up for land losses, as well as allocating additional debt relief and research funds at historically Black colleges and universities.

Three weeks after clearing his Senate agriculture committee hearing, the full Senate voted 92-7 Tuesday to confirm Tom Vilsack as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

Vilsack, an Iowan, served in the same role for all eight years of the Obama administration, and oversaw the USDA during passage and implementation of the 2014 Farm Bill, which allowed states to experiment with hemp production.

With bipartisan support, Vilsack received unanimous votes in his favor from Democrats, although his nomination was sharply criticized among civil rights advocates for his role in the agency’s foreclosure on Black farmers who had outstanding discrimination complaints, and inequitable farm loan distribution to Black farmers.

During his virtual Senate agriculture committee hearing, Vilsack said he would form an equity commission.

Vilsack did not mention hemp during the initial hearing, but he did update senators about Biden’s plans to make agriculture carbon neutral, an idea that could lead to new opportunities for hemp farmers.

Immediately out of the gate, Vilsack will likely be focused on pandemic-related farm aid, including the $3 billion in farm relief that Congress made available through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program and other initiatives.

As is customary with new administrations, President Joe Biden put a freeze on all spending during the transition, including a freeze on direct payments to farmers “until further notice.”

Over the past four years, Vilsack served as president and CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

The Senate Agriculture Committee talks to an experienced hemp regulator Tuesday when it considers the confirmation of Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture.

Vilsack, an Iowan, is President Joe Biden’s nominee and served in the same role for all eight years of the Obama administration.

He oversaw the USDA during passage and implementation of the 2014 Farm Bill, which allowed states to experiment with hemp production.

Vilsack is considered to be a “confirmable” pick for the narrowly divided Senate. He was unanimously confirmed in the Senate in 2009, though within the hemp industry has drawn a mix of reactions due to his contribution to a 2016 USDA memo outlining the limits of legal hemp production.

Others are optimistic that Vilsack’s experience will provide the necessary regulatory clarity for the hemp industry to move forward.

Kevin Shea has been serving as acting agriculture secretary during the presidential administration transition until Vilsack’s confirmation hearing is complete.

Congress made hemp a national commodity in 2018 and again put USDA in charge. The agency spent two years crafting rules for the new crop. But because those rules were published just a day before Biden took office, the new administration is taking a look at them and may consider further changes.

To read more about how the USDA plans to regulate hemp, download our free guide here.