On this week's hemp show, we talk to a couple of hemp policy advocates who recently traveled to the swamps of D.C. in hopes of affecting change.
This week we're joined by Geoff Whaling, chair of the National Hemp Association, and Andrew Bish, president of the Hemp Feed Coalition. Together they represent HEMI — the Hemp Education and Marketing Initiative — which recently released its "Pushing Progress" framework, an industry-led effort to bring some structure to federal hemp policy.
The Pushing Progress framework attempts to do several things — not the least of which is to impose order on an industry that's been a swirl of chaos since its inception.
First, clear lanes must be established. Fiber and grain over here, cannabinoids over there — with their own rules.
Next, make it easier for agriculture to adopt this crop by removing regulatory tensions and creating real access to markets — so a farmer can plant hemp with some confidence about where it's going and how it's going to get paid.
As Bish puts it, "We're coming at it from the industrial aspect, trying to figure out how we make sure that we have farmers that can successfully grow industrial hemp products and that hemp products can be in the marketplace without a tremendous amount of restriction."
Then, put some guardrails around the cannabinoid side. Not to shut it down, but to bring it out of this gray area where anything goes and everything gets called hemp.
And maybe most importantly, get the federal agencies on the same page — USDA, FDA, the whole alphabet — so we're not dealing with this split-screen reality where one arm of government tolerates something and another one ignores it.
Because right now, we don't have a system. We have fragments.
And what they're trying to do — whether you agree with every piece of it or not — is build something that actually functions like an industry.
And part of that — this is important — is money.
They're asking for roughly $600 million in federal funding to help stand up the infrastructure this industry still doesn't have — processing, research, supply chains.
That's a lot of money.
But their argument is pretty straightforward: Every major crop we take for granted today had decades of public investment behind it. Hemp didn't.
So if hemp is going to become a real agricultural commodity — not just an idea — we have to decide whether we're willing to build it, or just keep talking about it.
Plus, we've got a handful of news nuggets this week, including a slightly head-scratching, maybe-kind-of-important move from the FDA on CBD and a letter from seed guy Terry Moran, who read my Argentina episode and basically said, "Hold on a second…" and brought the whole conversation back down to earth.
Listen up, y'all.
Learn More
National Hemp Association
nationalhempassociation.org
Hemp Feed Coalition
hempfeedcoalition.org
Pushing Progress Framework (PDF)
https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming-news/hemp/pushing-progress-framework/pdf_b36257bd-ea94-4edf-b0c4-7bf88272f557.html
News Nuggets
FDA MEMO: Hemp-Derived Cannabidiol Products in Medical Research Models
https://www.lancasterfarming.com/fda-decision-memo-cbd-enforcement-discretion-memo-04012026-pdf/pdf_cf01bcc8-7753-4fc8-970c-52bcdfe807af.html
HempToday: Anti-cannabis groups sue over U.S. plan allowing hemp products in healthcare programs
hemptoday.net/anti-cannabis-groups-sue-over-u-s-plan-allowing-hemp-products-in-healthcare-programs/
HempToday: Polish hemp textile maker draws heavy demand in public offering on Warsaw exchange
hemptoday.net/polish-hemp-textile-maker-draws-heavy-demand-in-public-offering-on-warsaw-exchange/
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