All Daily Smoke entriesSeptember 28, 2026

1,066 Pages of Agriculture. So Where the Hell Is Hemp?

The Senate’s new Farm Bill talks about American agriculture for more than a thousand pages. Hemp—the crop Congress legalized through the Farm Bill eight years ago—is conspicuously absent. That doesn’t look like an oversight. It looks like a political choice.

The story

On September 24, the Senate Agriculture Committee's Agricultural Act of 2026 was formally reported to the Senate as S. 5526.

It's the Senate's latest attempt to finally replace the 2018 Farm Bill—the same Farm Bill that created the modern federal framework for legal hemp production.

Yet search the newly reported Senate legislation and you run into a remarkable problem:

Where is hemp?

The Senate Agriculture Committee describes Farm Bill 2.0 as legislation designed to strengthen American agriculture, create new markets for American-grown products, support rural communities and prepare the next generation of producers.

Those are exactly the conversations hemp farmers should be part of.

And yet hemp isn't being addressed in this bill.

That deserves more than a shrug.

Hemp didn't accidentally become part of the Farm Bill

Let's remember how we got here.

The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018—the 2018 Farm Bill—changed federal law regarding hemp, establishing a framework for legal hemp production and separating qualifying hemp from marijuana under federal controlled-substance law.

Whatever anyone thinks about what happened with the cannabinoid marketplace afterward, hemp agriculture didn't materialize out of thin air.

Congress created this framework.

Farmers planted under it.

Processors invested under it.

Businesses were built under it.

States developed regulatory systems around it.

And now, eight years later, Congress is writing the next major agricultural bill while simultaneously fighting over whether huge portions of the hemp industry should continue to exist.

That's what makes the omission so important.

So why did the Senate leave hemp out?

Here's where we need to distinguish fact from interpretation.

We have not found a statement from Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman explicitly explaining why hemp provisions were excluded from S. 5526.

But we do know something important about the strategy behind this Senate Farm Bill.

When Boozman discussed his approach earlier this summer, he openly explained that the Senate version was being designed differently from the House bill because legislation needs bipartisan support to move through the Senate.

Speaking about contentious provisions generally, Boozman said:

“The things that are contentious that Democrats don't support, we elected to leave out.”

That statement wasn't specifically about hemp. It would be misleading to pretend that it was.

But it tells us something important about how this bill was constructed: controversial issues were deliberately separated from the core package when lawmakers believed they could threaten its passage.

And hemp is unquestionably one of the issues Congress is fighting over right now.

Because Congress IS dealing with hemp—just not here

This is the part that makes the omission impossible to dismiss as Congress simply forgetting hemp exists.

While hemp isn't being addressed in the Senate Farm Bill, lawmakers have spent months fighting over federal hemp policy elsewhere.

Congress recently delayed major changes to federal hemp law until December 11, 2026.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar described the delay as giving hemp farmers, brewers and small businesses additional time while Congress works toward a long-term solution. She has advocated for a regulatory approach rather than allowing the broader restrictions to take effect as originally scheduled.

So Congress knows there is a hemp problem.

Congress knows there is a deadline.

Congress knows farmers and businesses need certainty.

Congress is actively legislating about hemp.

It's simply not doing it in this Senate Farm Bill.

And that distinction matters.

The House took a different approach

This isn't even a situation where lawmakers universally decided hemp doesn't belong in agricultural legislation.

The House version addressed hemp.

The Senate version took a different route.

Now those two versions have to be reconciled.

And those negotiations aren't some distant event waiting until after Election Day.

On September 25—one day after S. 5526 was reported—Boozman said his staff was already talking with House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson's staff.

Boozman said:

“We won't wait until we come back, we'll do that right now.”

He said he intends to negotiate in October with the goal of producing legislation capable of passing both chambers before the end of the year.

That makes right now important.

Through The Flower Pharm's lens

And let's be clear: hemp is bigger than intoxicating products One of the biggest failures in America's current hemp conversation is that an entire agricultural crop keeps getting reduced to one marketplace. Hemp isn't just gummies. It isn't just THC beverages. It isn't just CBD. We're talking about Cannabis sativa L. grown for grain, seed, fiber and other agricultural applications, in addition to cannabinoid production. That distinction is so real that Congress itself has proposed definitions specifically recognizing industrial hemp grown for stalk and fiber, whole grain, oil, cake, nuts, hulls and other non-cannabinoid seed products. That's agriculture. And for farmers trying to build markets around grain and fiber, regulatory uncertainty surrounding cannabinoids shouldn't make the rest of the plant disappear from agricultural policy. Regulate products based on what they are. Establish testing. Establish labeling. Establish age restrictions where appropriate. Create manufacturing standards. Enforce them. But don't pretend the solution to a complicated marketplace is pretending the crop doesn't exist. Maybe the omission tells us something bigger Here's our read. We can't tell you that Senate leaders deliberately removed hemp from the Farm Bill because they were afraid it would jeopardize passage. There isn't enough public evidence to state that as fact. But the legislative history gives us reason to ask the question. We know Senate leadership deliberately tried to keep contentious issues from derailing Farm Bill 2.0. We know hemp policy is currently contentious enough that Congress just had to delay major federal changes while lawmakers search for another solution. We know the House and Senate took different approaches. And we know negotiations between those chambers are already beginning. Put those facts together and the absence of hemp looks less like a typo and more like unfinished business. What we don't know yet is what that business will look like when Congress finishes it. That's why advocacy matters NOW This is the part people misunderstand about advocacy. You don't wait for Congress to finish writing legislation and then get angry about what it says. You speak while they're writing it. The Senate bill isn't necessarily the final Farm Bill. The House bill isn't necessarily the final Farm Bill. The final legislation will emerge from negotiations between the chambers, and those conversations are beginning now. If you're a hemp farmer, processor, manufacturer, retailer, consumer or simply someone who believes hemp deserves a legitimate place in American agriculture, this is the moment to pay attention to what Congress does next. Read the legislation. Contact your representatives. Ask where they stand. Ask what happens to grain and fiber. Ask what happens to cannabinoid products. Ask what regulatory framework replaces prohibition. And most importantly, don't allow lawmakers to talk about “hemp” as though one product category represents an entire plant and every farmer growing it. Because there's something absurd about Congress writing more than a thousand pages about the future of American agriculture while leaving unresolved the future of a crop Congress itself brought back into American agriculture through the last Farm Bill. Hemp didn't disappear. It was left for another fight. And that fight is happening right now. — The Daily Smoke The Flower Pharm

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