HB 1224 was heard in the Senate Committee on Commerce and Technology yesterday. The Committee did not take a vote yesterday, and we need your help to get it on the committee agenda for Thursday. MHC President Justin Swanson offered the following statement on yesterday’s hearing and the importance of HB1224 for the whole hemp plant economy in Indiana:

Indiana members! This is it! HB 1224 will be scheduled for a hearing at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, April 5, in the Senate Committee on Commerce and Technology. We need all of you to consistently contact the committee members and ask that they vote “Yes” on HB 1224. Their contact information can be found below. This bill will not pass unless you help educate Senators on why this bill is so important to you as a farmer, business or consumer. Currently, craft hemp flower is free to move in “continuous transit” in Indiana - so long as an Indiana farmer didn’t grow it, an Indiana business didn’t sell it and an Indiana consumer didn’t possess it.

The House Committee on Commerce, Small Business and Economic Development took testimony on HB 1224 on January 25, 2021. The bill will be scheduled for a final committee vote early next week and we need your help.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Office of Indiana State Chemist (OISC) is warning the public about predatory hemp seed vendors known to be currently active in the state.

Heartland Hemp Coop today announces the launch of its member-owned cooperative, focused on building a seed-to-shelf supply chain for hemp farmers in the Midwest. The coop will focus on the production and processing of hemp for fiber. 

After establishing the Midwest Hemp Council Animal Feed Committee and forming a partnership with the Hemp Feed Coalition, exciting progress is being made in unifying the HFC’s vision with MHC membership.

U.S. seed developer New West Genetics (NWG) has released ABOUND, a line of dioecious hemp seeds for row crop farming, suggesting that conventional outdoor growing offers a path to scalability, dual-cropping of CBD and grain, and a stable supply chain.

Last week, The Office of Advocacy (Advocacy) of the U.S. Small Business Administration submitted a comment letter in response to the reopening of the public comment period for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) interim final rule. They urged AMS to extend the public comment period for a minimum of 30 additional days to allow for small businesses and their representatives to fully and meaningfully participate in this important rulemaking.

To read their letter, click here.

The state of New York will not submit a state hemp plan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), saying the federal program‘s requirements are too strict on growers. The announcement effectively puts on hold the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets’ hemp program.

“It’s an interesting situation trying to figure out how to navigate. Having a revenue stream shut down as a small business is very detrimental for investing in our business and home state here. We’re trying to scale our business, and having restrictions like this are detrimental to us trying to build jobs and providing economic impact. It has a heavy impact on businesses like us.”

Before the first seed was tucked into Texas soil, farmers and investors eager for a different kind of green revolution flocked to Dallas in January for the Texas Hemp Convention. It was the state’s largest such gathering yet, the culmination of a year’s worth of buzz following the Texas Legislature’s 2019 legalization of industrial hemp. Part of the cannabis family, the plant, unlike its relative marijuana, contains only trace amounts of THC, the psychoactive compound. But it is rich in CBD, a chemical component used as an ingredient in FDA-approved medication and in home remedies to treat anxiety, pain, insomnia, and even seizures.

Read more in Texas Monthly.

National hemp groups are organizing a campaign to establish a checkoff program – a sometimes-acrimonious system designed to raise money for industry research and promotion by taxing those who profit from the plant.

The long awaited ruling from the Seventh Circuit on criminalizing smokable hemp arrived late yesterday evening. The decision is a mixed bag for the industry in that the decision affirmed part of the district court’s rationale for the injunction but found that the injunction was too broad. We believe the 7th Circuit’s decision affirms the unconstitutionality of portions of SEA 516 and look forward to addressing those arguments on remand. As of now, the injunction being lifted will officially be in effect on July 29, 2020. You should plan to have all smokable hemp products off the shelf by this date.

Read the ruling here.

 Midwest Hemp Council Member, Mark Boyer, tells us “I will be adding hemp seed oil to our lineup of cold pressed, farm grown oils in hopes of establishing a value based market for this form of hemp. This crop with its many different forms and markets, has the long term potential of being a solid performer as a rotational crop in production agriculture."