USDA Highlights Work To Unlock Hemp’s ‘Amazing Nutritional Benefits’ For Consumers And Its Economic Value For Farmers

A new video from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) touts the many uses of hemp, including for fabric, paper, construction materials and a wide range of nutritional products. Novel ways of processing the plant, it adds, could one day incorporate nutrients from hemp into even more everyday foods.

Scientists with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service are working to “unlock this plant’s amazing nutritional benefits for consumers and new economic benefits for the farmer,” the agency said in a news release this week. The research is unfolding at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, in Peoria, Illinois.

“The hemp plant is a very robust plant,” Sean Liu, a research leader at the facility, says in the new video, noting that hemp grows in a range of different conditions, requires comparatively few agricultural inputs and can be processed into all sorts of products.

Nutritionally, seeds contain a variety of amino acids and are rich in protein, Liu adds, while hempseed oil contains both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. “It has a lot of unsaturated fatty acids that’s good for your heart, and it also can lower your blood pressure,” he explains.

But as Liu says in the video, there’s more work do be done to unlock hemp’s nutritional potential.

“We want to fully utilize the hemp seeds,” says the researcher. “Oil is a good part of the hemp seeds, but there are other things that we want to utilize to maximize the benefits of the hemp seeds, such as the proteins and the dietary fibers. They are all good food ingredients that can be used for a lot of healthy food.”

USDA’s release says the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is a good investment for Americans. “Each dollar invested in U.S. agricultural research,” it claims, “results in $20 of economic impact.”

With hemp, ARS hopes to find new, more effective ways to incorporate hemp’s nutritional components into foods, Liu explains in the agency’s video.

“There’s a couple ways of utilizing hemp seeds,” he says. “One is that you use the whole grains, the whole seeds… The other way to do it is to take out some of the components to incorporate the formulation of a lot of common foods.”

“I think that the industry really does not have that kind of knowledge. It takes time, money to try some of those things that they may not be willing to spend,” the research director continues. “What we will try to do is develop a technology that enables the industry to use those materials.”

As part of that work, Liu says, “we want to figure out what is going to happen if you put those ingredients in the food formulation—for instance bakery goods, Cheetos, whatever it is—that will cause the color changes, texture changes or flavor changes. If that’s the issue, how are we going to solve it?”

The aim of the research, he concludes, is to increase demand for farmers’ hemp crops and expand consumer access to healthy food.

Since the legalization of hemp in the U.S. through the federal 2018 Farm Bill, USDA has been working to bolster the hemp industry, including by appointing a number of industry stakeholders this past summer to a federal trade advisory committee meant to support efforts to promote U.S.-grown cannabis around the world.

The agency also recently made what it calls “improvements” to a federal hemp crop insurance program. The changes ease certain crop-rotation requirements and remove smoke damage as a cause of covered loss and apply to USDA’s Hemp Crop Insurance Standards Handbook and Hemp Loss Adjustment Standards Handbook for 2025 and succeeding crop years.

Meanwhile, the department recently announced it is delaying enforcement of a rule requiring hemp growers to test their crops exclusively at labs registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), citing “setbacks” at the agency that have led to “inadequate” access to such facilities.

This is the third year in a row that USDA has delayed enforcement of the lab testing policy for hemp required under the 2018 Farm Bill that federally legalized the crop.

In August, USDA also advised stakeholders of a policy change in China to impose tighter regulations on hemp-derived CBD, though it said the new rules were expected to benefit the industry.

Two years after hemp and its derivatives were federally legalized in the U.S. under the 2018 Farm Bill, China agreed to a trade deal that required it to buy significantly more of the non-intoxicating cannabis crop from U.S. sources. That agreement expired in 2022, however.

USDA also awarded $745,000 to the National Industrial Hemp Council (NIHC) to support efforts to promote the industry internationally in emerging markets across the world. In 2020, USDA awarded NIHC $200,000 as part of a different grant program.

The latest grant round was distributed during a precarious time for the hemp industry. While a USDA report found that the market started to rebound in 2023 after suffering significant losses the prior year, it’s still facing uncertainties as congressional lawmakers have advanced bills that would effectively ban most consumable hemp-based cannabinoid products—a major sector of the cannabis economy.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in a report in June that hemp provisions included in one spending bill that moved through committee could also “create confusion” for the industry due to a lack of clarity around the type of allowable products.

Senate Democrats recently released the long-awaited draft of 2024 Farm Bill that contained several proposed changes to federal hemp laws—including provisions to amend how the legal limit of THC is measured and reducing regulatory barriers for farmers who grow the crop for grain or fiber. But certain stakeholders are concerned that part of the intent of the legislation is to “eliminate a whole range of products” that are now sold in the market.

One key component of the legislation concerns the definition of hemp. As currently enacted, a crop is considered federally legal hemp if it contains no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC by dry weight. That would be revised under the new bill, making it so hemp would have to be tested for “total THC” content, including cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC and THC-A, and not just delta-9.

That could theoretically lead to a significant upheaval of the hemp industry as it has evolved since the crop was federally legalized under the 2018 Farm Bill, restricting not only the varieties of plants that could be cultivated but also the products that would be permitted in the marketplace. Lawmakers have been increasingly targeting intoxicating cannabinoid products that have proliferated in recent years.

The new draft bill would also create a specific definition for “industrial hemp,” which includes fiber, stalks, grain, oil, seeds and other components of the plant that “will not be used in the manufacturing or synthesis of natural or synthetic cannabinoid products.”

Recent USDA data showed a slight rebound in the hemp economy in 2023—the result of a survey that the department mailed to thousands of farmers across the U.S. in January. The first version of the department’s hemp report was released in early 2022, setting a “benchmark” to compare to as the industry matures.

Bipartisan lawmakers and industry stakeholders have sharply criticized FDA for declining to enact regulations for hemp-derived CBD, which they say is largely responsible for the economic stagnation.

To that end, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in April, where he faced questions about the agency’s position that it needed additional congressional authorization to regulate the non-intoxicating cannabinoid.

USDA is also reportedly revoking hemp licenses for farmers who are simultaneously growing marijuana under state-approved programs, underscoring yet another policy conflict stemming from the ongoing federal prohibition of some forms of the cannabis plant.

For the time being, the hemp industry continues to face unique regulatory hurdles that stakeholders blame for the crop’s value plummeting in the short years since its legalization. Despite the economic conditions, however, a recent report found that the hemp market in 2022 was larger than all state marijuana markets, and it roughly equaled sales for craft beer nationally.

Meanwhile, internally at USDA, food safety workers are being encouraged to exercise caution and avoid cannabis products, including federally legal CBD, as the agency observes an “uptick” in positive THC tests amid “confusion” as more states enact legalization.

As for the nutritional value of hemp, an organization of livestock feed control officials earlier this year voted to allow commercial farmers to begin using hemp seed meal as food for egg-laying hens. Under the new policy, which was recommended by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), hemp meal can account for up to 20 percent of hens’ diet.

Last year, meanwhile, New York lawmakers sent Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) a bill that would have legalized hemp seed as a feed ingredient for horses, llamas and household pets, though the governor ultimately vetoed the measure, citing lack of safety information on the practice.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent warning letters in 2022 to a series of businesses marketing CBD products for animals, cautioning that there’s a “lack of data on what levels of potential residues are safe for a person consuming the foods that come from CBD-treated animals.”

In April 2023, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that cows that are fed hempseed cake retain very low concentrations of THC and CBD in their bodies, indicating that meat products from hemp-fed cattle are safe for human consumption.

Another federally funded study published in 2022 found that feeding cows hemp in fact reduces their stress levels. Researchers have also previously looked into how CBD affects stress and pain in horses.

Among humans, use of cannabis stretches back millennia, according to a recent study, with the plant employed as a source of fiber, nutrition, medicine, spirituality and pleasure.

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