Obama signs seventh Executive Order identifying "hemp" as a "strategic resource" & the 4th federal document to reference "essential civilian demand."

Last Friday, President Barack Obama joined the ranks of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Richard Nixon and William Clinton, by signing the seventh Executive Order that identifies "hemp" as a "strategic resource." His is also the second E.O., and the fourth federal document to acknowledge "essential civilian demand" as a part of a coordinated response to national defense.

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 16, 2012
Executive Order — National Defense Resources Preparedness
EXECUTIVE ORDER
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS

PART I - PURPOSE, POLICY, AND IMPLEMENTATION
Sec. 103. General Functions. Executive departments and agencies (agencies) responsible for plans and programs relating to national defense (as defined in section 801(j) of this order), or for resources and services needed to support such plans and programs, shall:

(a) identify requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand;

PART VIII - GENERAL PROVISIONS

Sec. 801. Definitions.

(e) "Food resources" means all commodities and products, (simple, mixed, or compound), or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals, irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be put, at all stages of processing from the raw commodity to the products thereof in vendible form for human or animal consumption. "Food resources" also means potable water packaged in commercially marketable containers, all starches, sugars, vegetable and animal or marine fats and oils, seed, cotton, hemp, and flax fiber, but does not mean any such material after it loses its identity as an agricultural commodity or agricultural product.