The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a final rule today, building off the interim final rule it issued in October 2019 and incorporating both public comments and the agency’s takeaways from the 2020 growing season. In general, the final rule makes modest adjustments to the interim final rule in order to make it less onerous for producers to grow hemp while imposing stricter requirements on how crop must be tested.
Most importantly, the final rule recognizes that growers may accidentally produce crop that contains more than 0.3 percent THC and raises the limit for negligently doing so from 0.5 percent to 1 percent, but requires that producers test for total THC levels in crop, rather than for delta-9 THC levels. Testing for total THC levels makes it more likely a crop could exceed the legal limit for THC in hemp.
Continue Reading USDA’s Final Rule Makes Hemp Easier to Grow, Harder to Test