USDA’s Hemp Testing Rules: Fast Track Your Lab’s Preparedness with Digitization

Author: Martha Hernández

Journal: Cannabis Industry Journal, March 9, 2022

Abstract: The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a Final Rule (FR) on hemp testing that went into effect on 22nd March 2021. Consequently, all hemp testing laboratories must familiarize themselves with what is stipulated in the FR and do all that is required to comply.

The 2014 Farm Bill put to an end to years of hemp prohibition, at least to some extent. It also paved the way for the 2018 Farm Bill that brought hemp at par with other agricultural crops. States, through their departments of agriculture and institutions of higher learning, were allowed to cultivate industrial hemp for research purposes, under what was called the hemp pilot programs. Some states also allowed individuals to cultivate hemp to investigate the economic and agronomic viability of the crop. This increased the acreage of industrial hemp from zero to about 90,000 by 2018 when the Agricultural Act that legalized hemp was passed. Some of the states that participated in this program included Colorado, Kentucky, Montana, and Oregon.