“American hemp farmers deserve to know their seed supply is not about to become collateral damage in a fight that was never about them.”
By Jessica Wasserman, American Seed and Innovation & Growth Alliance
On November 12, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) could become the primary regulator of America’s hemp seed supply. Not because Congress debated and decided it should be, but because of a single sentence, tucked into last December’s FY2026 appropriations bill.
If Section 781 of that legislation takes effect as written for seed, it will pull DEA into the regulation of hemp seed, reclassifying it as a potential Schedule I substance subject to destruction. Farmers and research institutions that simply hold seed in inventory, as they do every single season, in barns, coolers and university breeding programs, will suddenly find themselves in possession of a federally controlled substance.
The American Seed and Innovation & Growth Alliance (ASIGA) has spent months meeting with dozens of members of Congress and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials educating them about this issue.
Lawmakers across the spectrum agree the provision is misguided. The trouble is that the broader, more contentious fight over intoxicating hemp products has swallowed the oxygen in the room, leaving this narrower but urgent agricultural issue struggling to break through.
Limiting the hemp seed supply is a mistake Congress cannot afford to make. If the seed provision is not fixed or its implementation is not further delayed, the provision will take effect automatically on November 12, harming the very farmers Congress says it wants to protect. Hemp farmers will lose access to affordable seed and genetics moving in interstate commerce and for no apparent benefit.
The longer-term costs are even steeper.
Other countries are investing aggressively in hemp genetics and innovation, developing next-generation applications in insulation, automotive interiors and other industrial uses that depend on stable access to improved plant varieties. Genetic innovation is a long game. It takes years of breeding, testing and seed multiplication to bring a better fiber or grain variety to market.
If American researchers and seed companies cannot move seed and genetic material freely across state lines, the U.S. hemp sector will fall behind in exactly the kind of innovation race it should be positioned to win.
The Section 781 hemp seed provision is also a small business problem. Seed purveyors and seed banks are, by and large, small and specialized operations. A rule forcing them to trace every seed lot back to a specific tested parent plant, crop or field would impose costs and paperwork many simply cannot absorb. Some will exit the business. Others will pass the costs on to farmers as higher seed prices, at a time when input costs across agriculture are already a source of real strain.
There is no problem with seed regulation that needs to be fixed. Seed regulation has worked effectively since the 2018 Farm Bill. Hemp seed is treated like all other agricultural seed in the United States: regulated by USDA under the Federal Seed Act for quality, purity and truth in labeling, and free to move in interstate commerce. This framework has functioned well for nearly a decade.
Section 781 would replace this workable system with burdensome regulation requiring seed to be traced back to a specific parent plant, crop or field that has been tested. This approach would be expensive, inflationary and disruptive. Section 781 solves a problem that does not exist.
Congress does not have the luxury of waiting for the next Farm Bill or a regular-order appropriations package. Farmers need a solution before November 12. Lawmakers need to act now. Waiting for the “right” bill is not a strategy. It is a guarantee that the deadline arrives first.
The farmers who grow industrial hemp for fiber, grain and the emerging materials economy and the seed providers are not asking for anything new. They are not asking for a carve-out or a special favor. They are asking Congress to preserve a system of seed regulation that has already proven it works for nearly a decade, treating hemp seed the same as every other agricultural seed in America.
Allowing Section 781 to upend that system, as a side effect of a fight over intoxicating hemp, would be a lose-lose for American agriculture and American innovation alike.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have told us privately that an expensive traceback regulation for seed is not what they intended. The fix is straightforward and narrow—continue to regulate seed according to the chemistry of the seed, zero THC.
Congress still has time to get this right. We hope, and expect, that it will. But that window is closing fast, and American hemp farmers deserve to know their seed supply is not about to become collateral damage in a fight that was never about them.
Jessica Wasserman is executive director of the American Seed and Innovation & Growth Alliance (ASIGA).
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