A key House committee chairman has unveiled the latest version of a large-scale agriculture bill—with provisions his office says will reduce “regulatory burdens for producers of industrial hemp.”
The proposed 2026 Farm Bill released on Friday by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-PA) would maintain the industrial hemp program at a time when the cannabinoid industry finds itself threatened by a pending recriminalization of most consumable cannabinoid products under separate legislation President Donald Trump signed into law last year.
But for farmers growing hemp for industrial purposes such as fiber and grain, the latest iteration of the Farm Bill is being pitched as a source of industry relief, with policies allowing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), as well as states and tribes, to “reduce or eliminate testing requirements and background checks for producers,” for example.
Those provisions are modeled after the standalone Industrial Hemp Act, bipartisan legislation introduced in the 118th Congress aimed at bolstering the hemp market that evolved after the crop and its derivatives were federally legalized in 2018 during Trump’s first term in office.
Under the new 2026 Farm Bill, USDA would also face a mandate to “establish a process by which laboratories can be
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