Hemp is a small part of the Farm Bill. And for decades, it wasn’t part of the Farm Bill at all. Hemp was included within the definition of “marijuana” in the Controlled Substances Act and, like its sister cannabis plant, was a Schedule I controlled substance.
Starting in 2014, however, the Farm Bill began to impact the cannabis industry. Specifically, the 2014 Farm Bill carved out the newly defined term “hemp” from the definition of marijuana, defining hemp as “the plant Cannabis sativa L. and any part of such plant, whether growing or not, with a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis.”