ASTA's Policy & Leadership Development Conference Virtual Session Provides Hemp Seed Technology, Production, And Regulatory Updates

Alexandria, VA (June 11, 2020) – The American Seed Trade Association’s (ASTA) Policy & Leadership Development Conference (PLDC) virtual series continued Wednesday with a session about hemp seed technology, production, and regulatory updates.

The session was intended to provide current information about a rapidly changing topic, says Wendy Mosher, CEO of New West Genetics and chair of ASTA’s Hemp Seed Working Group.

“The hemp industry has changed a lot over the past year, even within the last two months,” Mosher says.

New Hemp Testing Method

One of the most recent changes is the approval of a new testing method for hemp. The AOAC International official testing method adopted in 2018 needed to be modified to help in determining whether a plant is hemp or not, says Holly Johnson, PhD, American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) chief science officer and AOAC cannabinoids working group chair.

“We really have to focus in on this determination of Delta-9 THC because in hemp, this is the way,” Johnson says. “As per the current United States regulations and laws, these big economic and legal implications really come down to test for this single component.”

The 2018 Farm Bill required reporting percent total THC on a dry weight basis, Johnson notes.

In April, Johnson explains AOAC adopted a new method that has provisions for hemp in order to be compliant with the interim USDA final rule.

“We now have a testing method that goes through all of these steps for hemp and essentially can comply with the interim final rule and do fresh from the field compliance testing for this percent THC,” Johnson says. “This is a big new development in the hemp testing world that we now have an AOAC official standard method, now modified in the past couple months, that addresses this first step where we get fresh material from the field and that wasn’t included in previous methods of analysis. We have an official method of analysis that can be adopted by labs to all be doing the same thing.”

AOSCA Hemp Variety Review Board Update

In addition, AOSCA Executive Director Chet Boruff provided an update on their newly-established Hemp Seed Variety Review Board process to provide seed certification for hemp.

“The hemp seed industry is really rapidly evolving,” Boruff says. “It’s trying to accomplish in just a period of 2, 3, or 4 years what other crops have had the luxury of decades to evolve.”

Boruff explains seed certification is a two-step process.

“If you’re going to sell a crop or a variety of certified seed, then you have to have eligible pure varieties to begin with,” Boruff says. “It’s only logical it starts with the seed. The whole purpose for certification is to make sure the buyer of that seed is getting the pure variety that they pay for and that they expect.”

The variety review process looks at what potentially could be varieties, Boruff says. He notes the process makes sure the potential varieties pass the criteria for being distinct, uniform, and stable in terms of how they perform in the field.

It makes sure the varieties are grown “so at the end of the day the seed customer gets what they pay for and that what’s in the bag or container of seed that carries the identifiable blue AOSCA tag is really what they expect,” Boruff says.

AOSCA’s Hemp Variety Review Board met for the first time at the end of May to review applications, Boruff says.

“We did have quite a number of applications,” Boruff says. “We’re going to provide quite a number of new varieties to the pre-existing list of varieties that are eligible for seed certification.”

Boruff isn’t sure when the Hemp Variety Review Board will next meet, but he anticipates sessions will be needed more frequently than once a year like review boards for other crops typically meet until they are caught up with a backlog of applications for hemp.

Other presenters during the hemp session included Russell Laird, National Industrial Hemp Council, who provided a federal regulatory update; Rich Fletcher of New West Genetics and Ty Stukenholtz of FarmMax, who discussed production innovation; and Scott Bennett, American Farm Bureau Federation, who provided a hemp markets outlook.

PLDC Virtual Update

According to ASTA, its first virtual conference has been setting new attendance records for an ASTA June event. The virtual event replaced the PLDC meeting that was scheduled to be held this month in Indianapolis, IN, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

ASTA says PLDC Virtual kicked off with two sessions providing in-depth analyses of the economic outlook for field crops and produce and has already set an eight-year record of participants in its June programming. ASTA will carry this virtual series forward with a historic event on June 16: the first virtual Annual Meeting of its members in its 137-year history.

“The accessibility of the virtual format affords a whole new group of ASTA members the chance to participate in our free sessions this summer and get to know this new event, which was transformed from our former Annual Convention that had been held every year since 1883,” says Jennifer Crouse, Senior Director of Meetings & Services at ASTA. “This year is only the second year in history that our live June event has been cancelled, the other being in 1945 during World War II. We can’t wait to get back together again in D.C. next year, but for now, we are thrilled to find that today’s technology not only allows us to continue to provide valuable programming for our members during a pandemic, but also helps to familiarize a broader range of our members with this important content.”

Registration for PLDC Virtual is free to ASTA members and sessions continue through July, including additional topics such as Moving Seed in an Uncertain World, Innovation & Policy, and the ASTA Annual Meeting on June 16.

The conference website has links to a series of strategic issue sessions, in addition to an archive of ASTA leadership development sessions, curated in one place for the first time from its Leadership, Education and Development (LEAD) Committee, the former FuSE Subcommittee and prior PLDC live sessions for early-career seed industry professionals to continue to build their career skills.

Written by Chris Lusvardi, Seed Today editor