Pissed Over the Proposed Hemp Industry Regs?
6 Tips to Craft Your Comments
Steaming mad over the new proposed hemp industry rules and regulations? Join the crowd.
The long-anticipated, USDA “Establishment of a Domestic Hemp Program” interim rules and regulations were published Oct. 30. With their release you could practically hear the collective “WTF?” roll across the hemp fields of America.
Whether it’s the freaking out over total THC testing, the .5 percent ‘acceptable’ standard to avoid fines, the 15-day test to harvest window, or requiring testing labs to be DEA-certified, there’s plenty to be concerned about in the proposed regulations.
But before you go stomping off, shaking your fist at the government, keep in mind the good news. At the moment these are ‘proposed’ rules and we’ve got 60 days, until Dec. 30th, to convince the USDA to change their mind on a few critical points. And that has (believe it or not) happened before.
Back in 2013 the FDA came out with the first version of the Food Safety Manufacturing Act. I was growing vegetables at the time on my small farm and like many other farmers of my size, would have been put out of business if the original rules had been passed as written. A huge comment writing campaign ensued, a record 39,887 were recorded. Mine’s in there somewhere.
The end result? The FDA sucked it up, went back to the drawing board and a much more small farm-friendly regulation was instituted. https://www.feedstuffs.com/story-fda-plans-significant-revision-to-fsma-rules-52-106313
Proof, it can be done! But not, I hate to say it, with comments like this one, posted in the past few days on the USDA proposed rules and regulations comments page:
“…Its (sic) sickening how you think you know whats (sic) best for a particular demographic of people or products without even asking the people who use hemp and grow it…”
Because the last time you had somebody calling you names, making out-of-context accusations and veiled insults, it totally made you change your mind. Right? Yeah….
How about we try a different tack. Take a deep breath, round file that pissed off comment letter, and think for a minute how a person who writes for a living (that’s me!) would go about this.
1) Start By Establishing Your Authority
Creating ‘authority’ is something that content writers like me obsess about. If you don’t think the person who wrote whatever you’re reading knows what the heck they are talking about, you’re not going to give their opinion much credence, right?
For a comment on a pending government regulation, you don’t have the luxury of time to put up two blog posts a week, create video and build up a ‘reputation’ as a leader in your industry by offering helpful content. However, you do have a potential 5000 characters of comment space. You can even upload a document.
Don’t comment anonymously, you just wasted your opportunity. (And if you really think you are making an ‘anonymous’ comment on a government website, let me introduce you to another little ole law called ‘The Patriot Act.’)
Are you a fourth generation Montana farmer who sits on the local farm bureau? A new farmer who just purchased an abandoned farm and are hoping to revitalize it? A lab owner who has been testing hemp for the last four years? Anything and everything that can speak to your ‘creds’ is worth putting into your comment, right at the very beginning.
Tell them who you are and what authority and experience you have to be making your comments. They’ll take you a lot more seriously.
2) — Write For Your Audience
When making comments to the USDA, you aren’t sitting around bitching over a beer with your fellow hemp farmers. You’re speaking, directly, to the USDA and all the policy wonks that work there. That’s the audience you need to engage and convince.
How do you do that? By understanding who they are first, and what they are working for. Because that helps you understand what they care about and — equally important — what they don’t.
What is the USDA? Well, it’s an agency of our government which, like it or not, we are all ruled under. The USDA itself is one of the oldest U.S. agencies. Established in 1862 under President Abraham Lincoln.
The USDA’s founding documents are remarkably short. Here’s the key part:
“…there is hereby established at the seat of government of the United States a Department of Agriculture, the general designs and duties of which shall be to acquire and to diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants.”
Check out that last line ‘distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants.’ Hello hemp! So, it’s obvious, from their founding documents, that hemp is right up the USDA’s alley, so to speak.
Having listened to the USDA’s comments embracing the hemp industry in the past six months, I do think they know that. In fact, currently the top left-hand corner of their website, the above the fold ‘prime website real estate’ features a link about the USDA hemp program. The USDA knows hemp is big.
The USDA’s motto, posted on their website? “Do right and feed everyone.”
Let’s not forget, in this CBD craze, that hemp has huge, potential via grain and oil, to ‘feed’ not only humans, but livestock too (which of course, then feed humans). These rules have the potential to drastically affect hemp production in those regards too.
We also need to consider, what the USDA is not? Well, they aren’t the DEA, for one.
Yes, it’s troubling, but not particularly surprising, the inclusion of DEA’s sticky fingers in the proposed hemp regulations. But the fact of the matter is, the USDA is still the one in charge of these particular set of regulations as they pertain to agriculture (remember those founding documents) and they are, or at least should be, focused on meeting their agencies objectives not the DEA’s. Don’t be afraid to point that out to them.
(As an aside, I would LOVE to know how the USDA feels about the DEA getting involved in a ‘farm commodity.’ I’m inclined to think they are none too thrilled about it either. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for those ‘behind-closed-doors’ meetings).
However, what the USDA can’t do is change the Controlled Substances Act. Or as many people want to see happen, legalize all cannabis. That’s not under the USDA’s control — that’s the DEA. So federally legalizing all cannabis isn’t the argument that will get any traction in this particular venue. Save your breath on that one for your elected politicians. (Especially after they see how much money the legal hemp industry can bring to the U.S.!)
What can get traction with the USDA, right now, is arguing that workable hemp regulations, even ones the narcotic officers over at DEA maybe don’t like so much, helps the USDA meet their own founding documents and their motto of “Do Right and Feed Everyone.”
3) — What’s Their Pain Points?
This is another subject that content writers think about a lot. Once you have figured out who your audience is, what are their pain points? What keeps them up at night? Well, in the case of the USDA, they conveniently tell you what they are right on their website.
USDA’s Strategic Goals for 2018 to 2022
- Ensure USDA programs are delivered efficiently, effectively, and with integrity and a focus on customer service.
- Maximize the ability of American agricultural producers to prosper by feeding and clothing the world.
- Promote American agricultural products and exports.
- Facilitate rural prosperity and economic development.
- Strengthen the stewardship of private lands through technology and research.
- Foster productive and sustainable use of our National Forest System Lands.
- Provide all Americans access to a safe, nutritious and secure food supply.
What keeps the USDA up at night? Worrying they aren’t making those goals.
Consider then, do the proposed hemp regulations as written throw a pipe-wrench in meeting them? Well, I think there are plenty of places one could argue that. Maybe you need to point that out. (Wink wink, nod nod).
There’s also another pain-point that is one that all government agencies feel. That’s the people. AKA, the consumer. The purpose of government is to ‘serve and protect the people.’ They don’t always get it right, but that’s the idea.
In the case of the USDA, farmers tend to forget that the USDA isn’t there to just help farmers. They are there to help farmers grow crops that feed, clothe, build, fuel or (in hemp’s case), heal the people. Goal number seven speaks to this in a roundabout way.
If you go to the USDA website, you can actually watch Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue chit-chatting about goal seven. https://www.usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/strategic-goals
He brags about how the USDA made penicillin happen. Scientists came up with the idea but “could not produce it in sufficient qualities.” It was the USDA’s agricultural research center that figured out how to do that and good golly, Sec. Perdue is tickled pink about that.
Don’t you think the USDA of the future would like to be able to brag they are growing ‘medicine’ via hemp? Especially ‘medicine’ the American consumers are clamoring for in record numbers? Sure, claiming CBD as ‘medicine’ is currently a legally perilous issue but, with time, that issue should be resolved. Yet, if the USDA makes the new regulations so onerous that hemp-derived CBD simply isn’t a financially sustainable crop then they are not only depriving U.S. farmers, but U.S. consumers as well.
4) — Are Your Comments Data Driven?
Everyone LOVES data in content. It’s so powerful in the media these days, that writers even get jobs working as a ‘data journalist.’
Include data in your comments. Especially data that pertains directly to you and your hemp business. How much is it going to cost you to buy seeds guaranteed (I use that term loosely) to not go hot under the current rule? Would your crop this year have not been accepted under the current testing rules and how much of a financial loss would that have meant? How much money did hemp bring to your county this year? Your state?
Government agencies, especially ones like the USDA who are already keenly aware that their customer (farmers) are struggling, hate hearing that something they propose is going to hurt businesses. Which will in turn cost consumers. But don’t just say ‘this will kill my business.’ Give them hard, financial facts showing them that.
You can also use other data. Studies, market analysis and what not. Just make sure you link to the sources and that they are reputable (and current!). Saying “everyone knows CBD is good for pain” doesn’t cut it. But linking to a study that says that, does.
5) Educate and Suggest Actionable Solutions
You’ve established you know what you’re talking about, you’ve pointed out why the USDA should listen to you and you’ve backed it up with cold, hard facts. You’ve primed your audience, so to speak. Now’s the time to educate and suggest the solutions you would like to see.
Don’t offer solutions that are complicated or will be expensive to enact. That’s not helpful. What is helpful is an idea that will save the government money and make their jobs (lives) easier. This is same reason consumers click on articles that say things like “5 Easy Ways To Lose Weight” or “3 Quick Tips for Saving Money.” We want easy, digestible solutions we can implement. They might not say it, but I can guarantee the USDA wants it too.
But easy, isn’t vague. Be specific with your solutions.
Don’t say, the ‘15-day window for testing to harvest’ is unreasonable. Say, ‘Our harvest this year took 30 days from start to finish, accommodating inclement weather and equipment delays. It took five days for out tests to come back and we had no control over that. We never would have been able to get harvested in 15 days. Forty-five days should be the minimum harvest, window and that should start after we get back our test results.”
This takes the ‘thinking’ out of the equation for the USDA and, assuming it is a reasonable, actionable solution, they will thank you for it.
6) Read, Research and Give the Industry Time to Think
The proposed rules and regulations have only been out since Oct. 30th. All the associations, attorney groups and lobbyists have been frantically immersed in analyzing the document since the minute they got their hands on it.
When small farmers pushed back on the FSMA, there was a huge concerted effort from all the groups supporting small farmers to organize comments and provide talking points. I personally went to several meetings at the time where we discussed the issues, the best comments and solutions we could provide. The hemp industry is hampered in this regard with its relative infancy, but there are still numerous organizations and recently founded lobbying groups that are frantically trying to put together this information.
Take some time to listen to their analysis and recaps as they become available. It doesn’t mean you have to agree, but they can help you understand how to craft your comments with solutions in mind. A lot of times their analysis will point out important issues in the minutiae of the regulations you might not have even noticed.
Keep in mind, it takes time for attorneys to do their thing and associations to craft talking points. Have a little patience, or, consider sending an additional comment if you’ve already made one. Here’s a few links to some information that has come out already, as well as planned webinars.
- VoteHemp has come out with a pretty comprehensive legal analysis but no talking points yet (they indicate that is coming). Link to that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPcytx1eIHQ
- Harris and Bricken, aka the Cannalaw Blog (one of my favorites) also have a webinar coming up on Nov 14th: https://www.cannalawblog.com/join-us-on-november-14th-for-a-free-webinar-on-the-usda-hemp-interim-regulations/
- The National Industrial Hemp Council is hosting a webinar Nov 19th with their legal partners as well as seminar to members only: https://hempindustrial.com/events/
- The Hemp Industries Hemp Association of Florida has put out their comments and talking points. It’s not on their website, but if you email ray@hiafl.org they are happy to share.
But whatever you do, make SURE to comment by the deadline of Dec. 30. To do that, go here: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=AMS_FRDOC_0001-1919
Back in 2013, small farmers like me posted 39,887 comments and changed the outcome of the FSMA in their favor. I challenge the hemp industry to top that. I might even help you out and go make a comment myself.
Game on!
Hello! I’m Farmer Georgie!
I’m a 4th generation farmer and freelance writer.
I am passionate about writing about farming issues, including hemp.
If you need copywriting or content help with your farm business, give me a shout.
Keep on farming!
Farmer Georgie
