The long-awaited Senate version of the Farm Bill was finally released earlier this week as the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and Committee Chair Senator Debbie Stabenow introduced the
Rural Prosperity and Food Security Act of 2024 on November 18, 2024. Following the introduction of the House version of the Farm Bill (entitled the
Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024) in May, Senator Stabenow called for immediate action and compromise between the House and Senate to pass another 5-year Farm Bill to support the nation’s farmers and noted that:
“Any successful Farm Bill will require the bipartisan support of our Republican colleagues and partners in the House. We hope that this will spur Republicans to return to the negotiating table in good faith and join us in reaching a bipartisan compromise that can be signed into law by the end of the year.”
Although the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry released a
bill summary and
section-by-section breakdown of the Senate bill closely on the heels of the introduction of the House bill, it took almost 6 months for the Committee to release the full text of the Senate bill. Now, with Congress in a lame-duck session and Republican control of the Senate looming, it seems unlikely that the two chambers would now start working in earnest to reconcile these competing conceptions of the next 5-year Farm Bill, which means another temporary extension of the 2018 Farm Bill may be on the horizon. In any event, the recently released Senate bill addresses, at some level, the oft-debated “hemp” exemption from the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”). Section 10016 of the Senate bill (entitled “Hemp Production”) would amend the operative definition of “hemp,” which currently is carved out from regulation/enforcement under the CSA, as follows:
(1) Hemp. The term “hemp” means (A)the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of that plant, including the seeds thereof and all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 total tetrahydrocannabinol concentration (including tetrahydrocannabinolic acid) of not more than 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis; and (B) industrial hemp.
(3) Industrial Hemp. The term “industrial hemp” means the plant Cannabis sativa L. if the harvested material (A) is only (i) the stalks of that plant, fiber produced from those stalks, or any other manufactured product, derivative, mixture, or preparation of those stalks (except cannabinoid resin extracted from those stalks); (ii) whole grain, oil, cake, nut, hull, or any other compound, manufactured product, derivative, mixture, or preparation of the seeds of that plant (except cannabinoid resin extracted from the seeds of that plant); or (iii) viable seeds of that plant produced solely for production or manufacture of any material described in clause (i) or (ii); and (B) will not be used in the manufacturing or synthesis of natural or synthetic cannabinoid products.
The Senate bill’s incremental modification to the threshold definition of “hemp” stands in contrast to what is known as the “Miller Amendment” to the House bill, which would narrow the definition of hemp to exclude essentially all intoxicating hemp-derived substances. Specifically, the Miller Amendment would close the existing definitional gap to exclude from “hemp” the following materials, which would subsequently be treated as “cannabis” (currently still a Schedule I substance) under the CSA:
- Any viable seeds from a Cannabis sativa L. plant that exceeds a total THC concentration (including THCA) of 0.3 percent in the plant on a dry weight basis;
- Any hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing cannabinoids that are not capable of being naturally produced by a Cannabis sativa L. plant;
- Any hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing cannabinoids that are capable of being naturally produced by a Cannabis sativa L. plant and were synthesized or manufactured outside the plant; and
- Any hemp-derived cannabinoid products containing quantifiable amounts (as determined by the Secretary of Agriculture) of THC or any other cannabinoids that have similar effects to THC.
If incorporated into the next 5-year Farm Bill (which is by no means a certainty even in a Congress unified under Republican control), the Miller Amendment would effectively ban all intoxicating hemp products in the US and snuff out a market estimated to be worth nearly $20 billion. Again, based on the past month’s events, we expect the next 5-year Farm Bill to be hashed out in the next Congress, but we will keep you informed of any notable developments through the end of the year.
