Hemp farmers getting federal pandemic assistance will see those payments frozen because of the changed administration.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that payments under the latest round of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program are on hold “until further notice” — though interested farmers can continue applying through Feb. 26.

The latest round of coronavirus relief for farmers went live Jan. 15. Like the previous rounds, it was designed to provide additional direct assistance for agricultural producers who continue to face market disruptions and associated costs.

The payments are on hold under a directive from the White House to pause Trump-era programs for review. USDA said that help is on the way but did not elaborate.

“In the coming days, USDA and the Biden Administration intend to take additional steps to bring relief and support to all parts of food and agriculture during the coronavirus pandemic, including by ensuring producers have access to the capital, risk management tools, disaster assistance, and other federal resources,” the note said.

Also last week, the department suspended past-due debt collections and foreclosures for distressed borrowers under the Farm Storage Facility Loan and the Direct Farm Loan programs administered by the Farm Service Agency.

The USDA did not elaborate on when debt collections might resume, though it told farmers the extension “is expected to continue while the national COVID-19 disaster declaration is in place.”

It was not clear how many hemp producers would be affected by either suspension.

Biden nominee to lead the USDA, Iowan Tom Vilsack, was scheduled to appear Tuesday for a confirmation hearing in the Senate.

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.

(Editor’s note: This comes from Hemp Industry Daily‘s free updated USDA Final Hemp Rule report, available for download here.)

The mishmash of U.S. hemp rules is on its way out.

More than two years after Congress made hemp a legal agricultural commodity, farmers finally have one national set of rules for growing it – instead of a confusing, state-by-state patchwork of guidelines on how to grow and test low-THC cannabis plants.

One of the big changes in the national hemp rules from the U.S. Department of Agriculture concerns disposal and destruction of hot hemp, or plants that test higher than 0.3% THC content.

In its interim rules, the USDA required legal hemp farmers to treat any hot plants as illegal drugs. That meant farmers had to enlist law enforcement officers (or federal agents licensed to destroy Schedule 1 substances) to exterminate those plants at an off-farm location.

In traditional agriculture, unwanted plants are simply plowed under or thrown away. Plants that contain dangerous pathogens are commonly burned in the field to prevent the spread of disease.

In response to numerous complaints from farmers about the burden this rule created, the USDA’s final rules allow states, territories and tribes to permit “common on-farm practices for the disposal of noncompliant plants.”

Those practices could include:

• Plowing, tilling or disking hot hemp into the soil.
• Mulching, composting, chopping or bush-mowing plant material into green manure.
• Burning.
• Burying hot hemp by covering it with soil.

The USDA concluded that the change would “minimize, to the extent possible, the resource impact” to local regulators.

For hemp farmers, the USDA estimates big savings from its new disposal protocols for destroying hot hemp  — from  an average $200 per acre to $14.25 per acre. That’s a decrease of 93%.

“We are confident that any disposal options make the product unusable and therefore is not at risk for entering any streams of commerce,” federal regulators said.

States still must keep records of how their farmers dispose of the hot hemp and share the information with federal authorities within 30 days.

The new disposal protocols don’t apply to hemp material destroyed by a farmer because of:

• Poor plant health.
• Pests.
• Disease.
• Weather events.
• Removal of male or hermaphrodite plants as part of a cross-pollination-prevention plan.

In these cases, farmers remain free to use any disposal methods they prefer.

The new disposal protocols also do not apply to growers directly licensed by the USDA, rather than by a state, tribe or territory. USDA-licensed farmers must follow the complicated drug protocols of having law enforcement or DEA-registered agents destroy hot hemp off-site.

To download the full report on the final USDA hemp rules, click here.

For an in-depth discussion on the final rules, don’t miss our free webinar on Friday, Feb. 5.

Farmers still making sense of long-delayed nationwide rules for growing hemp in 2021 and beyond got another wrinkle Wednesday when the incoming administration of President Joe Biden ordered a “freeze” on new regulations.

The memo instructed federal agencies — including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees hemp production — to consider additional 30-day comment periods for rules that have been finalized but not yet taken effect. Hemp falls into that category; the rules were published Tuesday but don’t take effect until March.

The memo said the additional comment period is a request, but not a requirement. USDA hasn’t answered multiple attempts from Hemp Industry Daily to find out how the agency plans to approach the hemp rules through the administrative transition.

Biden has announced his choice to lead the USDA, former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack of Iowa. But the selection must be approved by the Senate, which has not yet announced a schedule for confirmation hearings.

The final hemp rules give hemp farmers more breathing room if their crops exceed legal THC limits of 0.3% THC. They also give the industry options to sell parts of those plants, as well as more time before testing labs need certification by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

But some in the hemp industry were dismayed that the final version offers no route to market for cannabis in excess of 0.3% THC and retains unpopular requirements such as mandating that sampling be done by designated field agents.