Minnesota ag officials call the USDA’s interim standards “unworkable” for growers.
Minnesota agriculture officials are raising alarms over new federal rules governing the production of hemp, warning that the regulations would spread the state agency thin and punish farmers for even the slightest errors.
The interim hemp rules adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in October are “unworkable” and will put Minnesota’s “promising hemp industry in jeopardy,” state Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen wrote in a letter to the USDA on Jan. 2.
“It concerns me that there are parts of the interim rule that would make implementation of the hemp program extremely difficult in our state,” Petersen said. Continue reading.