Formal Notice to the United States Department of Agriculture: Exercising “Essential Military and Civilian Demand” for Regional Organic and Biodynamic Cannabis and Hemp Production under the Defense Production Act
Formal civilian demand to end THC limits on industrial hemp in the interest of National Security and Global Integrity
*Submitted by:**
Paul J. von Hartmann, Cannabis scholar
California Cannabis Ministry
Project PEACE
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Evolution
March 1, 2026
Brooke Rollins
United States Secretary of Agriculture
Congressman Glenn Thompson
PUBLIC COMMENT
Re: H.R. 7567 – Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026
Honorable Members of Congress,
National security is not abstract. It is material.
It is measured in the fertility of our soil, the resilience of our supply chains, the stability of our energy systems, the vitality of our workforce, and the sovereignty of our domestic production capacity.
The Farm Bill is not simply agricultural policy. It is national infrastructure policy.
Within H.R. 7567 are explicit priorities — soil health, renewable biomass, rural workforce development, domestic supply chain strengthening, nutrition security, and biobased manufacturing expansion. Industrial hemp intersects with every one of these objectives.
Failure to align hemp policy with these priorities creates internal contradiction within the bill itself.
I. Industrial Hemp as Strategic Agricultural Infrastructure
Industrial hemp (≤0.3% delta-9 THC under current federal law) is agronomically and economically distinct from intoxicating cannabis markets. It is cultivated globally for fiber, hurd, grain, and biomass.
The United States legalized hemp in 2018, yet regulatory instability has prevented scaling of domestic fiber and grain infrastructure. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to import hemp textiles, processed fibers, and hemp food products that could be produced domestically.
Beyond primary processing, industrial hemp represents a dormant domestic manufacturing platform at a moment of national vulnerability.
The United States faces a housing affordability crisis, fragile food systems, energy volatility, supply chain dependency on foreign industrial inputs, and accelerating climate instability that is already disrupting agricultural predictability. Simultaneously, USDA data continues to warn of soil erosion, organic matter decline, and long-term productivity stress in major agricultural regions.
Against this backdrop, hemp is not a niche crop — it is an underleveraged strategic asset.
Hemp fiber and hurd can be converted into construction materials including insulation, hemp-lime composites, molded fiber panels, and other building inputs that address energy efficiency and embodied carbon concerns in housing. Its fibers are used globally in automotive composites and industrial materials. Its cellulose supports paper and packaging applications. Its seed provides a unique and essential food source, and clean energy from the same harvest. Its biomass contributes to renewable fuel pathways, energy storage and carbon-rich derivatives such as biochar, all while sequestering carbon in a regenerative way.
These industries are not speculative. They are active globally.
What the United States lacks is not capability — it is scale and regulatory coherence.
Each regional hemp processing facility can anchor a vertically integrated local economy: farmers producing raw material, processors refining fiber and grain, manufacturers converting materials into finished goods, construction trades installing those materials, and consumers purchasing domestically produced alternatives to imported inputs.
This is not theoretical economic potential — it is supply chain diversification and domestic manufacturing restoration.
At a time when policymakers speak of reshoring industry, rebuilding rural America, and strengthening national security, restricting lawful farmers from participating in fiber and grain production under disproportionate regulatory burdens undermines those objectives.
Climate volatility is already shortening harvest windows and destabilizing yields. Soil degradation reduces future productivity. Energy costs strain rural margins. Housing demand outpaces supply.
In this context, expanding diversified regenerative crop systems is not ideological — it is pragmatic.
Industrial hemp does not solve every crisis. But it intersects meaningfully with housing materials, renewable biomass, soil systems, rural jobs, and nutrition resilience.
Denying proportional access to this agricultural and industrial lane is not cautionary governance.
It is strategic contraction at a time when expansion of domestic capacity is urgently needed.
II. Soil Health, Carbon Cycling, and Agroecological Stability
Hemp produces high above-ground biomass and deep root systems that contribute to:
• Improved soil structure and aggregation
• Reduced erosion risk in certain rotations
• Organic matter return to soil systems
• Increased microbial activity through root exudates
USDA conservation programming acknowledges soil degradation and erosion as long-term threats to agricultural productivity. Integrating hemp into soil health frameworks is consistent with the bill’s conservation investments.
Healthy soils are not environmental luxuries. They are foundational to national food security.
III. Renewable Biomass and Energy Resilience
Title IX expands advanced biofuel frameworks and supports sustainable aviation fuel derived from renewable biomass.
Industrial hemp is a lignocellulosic biomass source. While not a singular energy solution, diversified biomass systems enhance energy resilience. Co-product streams (fiber, hurd, seed) improve economic viability relative to single-output crops.
Energy independence depends on feedstock diversity and domestic production.
Restricting scalable biomass crops while promoting renewable fuel infrastructure creates policy inconsistency.
IV. Domestic Manufacturing and Rural Workforce Multipliers
The bill strengthens domestic supply chains, supports biorefinery assistance, and expands rural workforce training.
Industrial hemp processing requires:
• Decortication facilities
• Fiber refinement operations
• Seed pressing infrastructure
• Manufacturing conversion lines
Each processing facility generates agricultural demand, transportation jobs, equipment servicing, manufacturing labor, and construction work.
Economic multipliers in regional processing exceed farmgate crop value alone. Domestic fiber capacity reduces reliance on imported materials from geopolitical competitors.
National security includes industrial capacity.
V. Nutrition and Food Security
Hemp seed contains approximately 22% protein by weight, all essential amino acids, and a near-ideal omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio. Two tablespoons provide roughly 11 grams of protein and meaningful omega-3 content .
Mineral content includes magnesium, phosphorus, iron, and zinc .
In a nation facing food insecurity and rising diet-related chronic disease, excluding lawful hemp foods from strategic nutrition frameworks overlooks a viable domestic protein source.
Food security is not solely caloric. It is nutritional.
VI. Legal Precision, Regulatory Proportionality, and Farmer Burden
Congress possesses authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate agricultural production. That authority should be exercised with rational basis and proportional alignment to actual public safety risk.
Current federal hemp regulations require:
• Criminal background checks for producers
• Mandatory pre-harvest THC sampling and laboratory testing
• Crop destruction mandates triggered by marginal THC threshold exceedances
These provisions were designed to distinguish hemp from intoxicating cannabis markets. However, when applied to certified industrial fiber and grain varieties contracted for non-consumable processing, the regulatory burden becomes misaligned with actual risk.
Industrial hemp cultivated exclusively for fiber, hurd, biochar, construction inputs, textiles, industrial cellulose, or renewable biomass does not create an intoxicating consumer pathway. The stalk, hurd, and fiber are not psychoactive commodities.
Yet farmers producing these materials remain subject to:
• Criminal history screening requirements unrelated to product safety
• Laboratory testing costs on crops destined for industrial processing
• Mandatory destruction of biomass for marginal THC variance, even when no ingestion or inhalation exposure pathway exists
This framework imposes economic friction without proportional public safety benefit.
The destruction of industrial biomass due to marginal cannabinoid variance — when the crop is contractually destined for non-consumable use — represents avoidable economic loss inconsistent with national supply chain strengthening objectives.
A coherent modernization would:
• Distinguish certified fiber and grain production lanes from cannabinoid extraction markets
• Exempt industrial feedstock crops from disproportionate background check requirements where no retail cannabinoid commerce is involved
• Shift compliance enforcement to finished ingestible or inhalable consumer products
• Protect lawful interstate commerce in fiber and grain
Regulation should follow risk.
Where intoxicating consumer exposure is possible, safeguards are appropriate.
Where no such pathway exists, regulatory restraint is both rational and economically strategic.
VII. Ecological-Economic Coherence
Agriculture is not separate from ecology.
Long-term economic resilience depends on ecological stability — soil carbon retention, biodiversity support, diversified cropping systems, and regional production capacity.
Industrial hemp is not a miracle crop. It is a systems crop.
It connects:
• Soil restoration
• Renewable biomass
• Domestic manufacturing
• Workforce development
• Nutritional security
Policy coherence requires recognizing these interdependencies.
VIII. Recommendations
I respectfully urge Congress to:
- Protect clear regulatory lanes for non-intoxicating industrial hemp grown exclusively for fiber and grain.
- Remove disproportionate THC enforcement burdens for crops destined for non-consumable industrial processing.
- Integrate hemp explicitly into soil health, renewable biomass, and biobased manufacturing frameworks under this bill.
- Ensure SNAP and nutrition policies reflect lawful hemp foods supported by nutritional data.
- Regulate finished cannabinoid products through product standards — not through punitive crop-level restrictions.
The Farm Bill is a statement of national priorities.
If we prioritize resilience, sovereignty, and lawful enterprise, industrial hemp must be treated as strategic infrastructure — not regulatory collateral damage.
Security begins in cultivation.
This proposal synthesizes a comprehensive dialogue on the strategic role of industrial hemp and cannabis in advancing U.S. national security, economic equity, and sustainability. It urges the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to invoke authorities under the Defense Production Act of 1950 (DPA, 50 U.S.C. § 4501 et seq.), as implemented by Executive Order 13603 (National Defense Resources Preparedness, superseding EO 12919), and supported by 44 CFR Part 332 (Voluntary Agreements Under Section 708 of the DPA), to prioritize and allocate resources for the expansion of regional, organic, and biodynamic production of low-THC industrial hemp and high-THC cannabis varieties. This action addresses essential military and civilian demands amid vulnerabilities in supply chains, food and energy security, climate instability, and economic disparities.
By exercising DPA priorities, the USDA can facilitate scaled domestic production, regulatory modernization, and integration with complementary economic tools like regional hard currencies (e.g., modeled on Berkshares), fostering resilient, equitable economies that mitigate radical global disparities while bolstering national defense preparedness.
## I. Executive Summary of Key Discussion Points
This proposal draws from an in-depth GrokAI conversation exploring Cannabis as under-leveraged, unique & essential federally recognized “strategic” asset since 1942.
- **Strategic Resource Prioritization:** Unconstrained by THC limits and obsolete regulations, industrial hemp rates as an 8–9 on a 1–10 scale for national security priority, comparable to critical minerals or foundational feedstocks. It supports regional food & energy security, supply chain diversification, renewable biomass, food security, soil health, and industrial capacity—directly aligning with DPA goals for military sustainment and civilian resilience.
- **Mitigating Economic Disparities:** Regional organic and biodynamic production of high-THC cannabis (for medicinal/adult-use markets) and low-THC hemp (for energy, food, fiber, biomass) empowers small-scale farmers, indigenous communities, and marginalized groups. It decentralizes wealth from illicit or corporate-dominated chains, creates jobs across value chains, reduces import dependencies, and promotes social equity by addressing racial and gender inequities exacerbated by prohibition-era policies.
- **Sustainable Economic Integration:** Combining production with regional hard currencies (e.g., Berkshares model—backed by local assets, circulating within communities) enhances efficiency through localized multipliers, equity via inclusive cooperatives, and sustainability by incentivizing regenerative practices. This improves food security (via hemp's nutritional proteins and omegas) and energy security (through biofuels, biochar, and renewables), countering climate volatility and fossil fuel reliance.
These elements form a cohesive strategy: Cannabis as "systems crops" that connect soil restoration, domestic manufacturing, workforce development, and nutritional resilience, all while flipping extractive economies toward partnership-based models.
## II. Rationale for Exercising Essential Military and Civilian Demand
Under the DPA, the President (delegated to agencies like USDA) may prioritize contracts, allocate materials, and expand productive capacity to meet "essential civilian demand" beyond baseline levels, ensuring national defense preparedness against threats including supply disruptions, environmental crises, and economic vulnerabilities (EO 13603, § 101; 44 CFR § 332.1). EO 12919 (superseded but foundational) outlined similar measures for industrial resources, emphasizing voluntary agreements to scale critical sectors. Hemp and cannabis qualify as strategic resources due to their multifaceted applications:
- **Supply Chain and Industrial Resilience:** The U.S. imports hemp-derived products, exposing vulnerabilities akin to foreign dependencies on critical materials. Scaled regional production diversifies inputs for construction (hemp-lime composites), automotive composites, textiles, and bioplastics, reducing geopolitical risks and restoring domestic manufacturing—essential for military logistics and civilian infrastructure (DPA Title I priorities).
- **Food and Nutrition Security:** Hemp seeds provide complete proteins, essential amino acids, and omega fatty acids, addressing food insecurity and diet-related diseases. Regional biodynamic models ensure stable, local supplies, mitigating harvest disruptions from climate instability—critical for civilian sustenance and military rations (aligning with USDA conservation programs and DPA emergency preparedness).
- **Energy Independence and Climate Adaptation:** As lignocellulosic biomass, hemp supports biofuels (e.g., sustainable aviation fuel), energy storage, and carbon sequestration via biochar. Organic/biodynamic practices enhance soil health, erosion control, and biodiversity, building resilience against accelerating climate threats—vital for both civilian energy systems and defense operations (EO 13603, § 201 on energy resilience).
- **Economic Equity and Workforce Mobilization:** Regional production, paired with hard currencies like Berkshares, recirculates wealth locally, empowering rural and underserved communities. This counters radical disparities by shifting profits from traffickers or corporations to smallholders, creating multipliers in jobs, transportation, and biorefineries—echoing DPA objectives for a mobilizable industrial base (44 CFR Part 332 voluntary agreements).
Invoking DPA for hemp/cannabis is not novel; recent applications include agricultural inputs (e.g., fertilizers during shortages) and bioeconomy initiatives. Regulatory barriers (e.g., THC testing, background checks) create internal policy contradictions, undermining Farm Bill priorities in soil health, renewable biomass, and rural development (H.R. 7567). Exercising DPA authorities would modernize these, distinguishing industrial lanes from intoxicating markets and protecting interstate commerce.
## III. Proposed Actions and Implementation
The USDA should:
1. **Invoke DPA Priorities:** Designate regional organic/biodynamic hemp and cannabis production as meeting essential military and civilian demands. Allocate resources (e.g., grants, loans via Farm Service Agency) to scale infrastructure, including decortication facilities, biorefineries, and cooperative food networks.
2. **Regulatory Modernization:** Exempt certified industrial hemp from disproportionate burdens; shift from enforcement to testing of finished products. Integrate high-THC Cannabis into equity-focused frameworks, prioritizing small-scale organic producers & distribution.
3. **Economic Integration with Regional Currencies:** Pilot programs combining production with Berkshares-style currencies, backed by hemp/cannabis assets or USDA reserves. This incentivizes local circulation, funds sustainable practices, and enhances food/energy security through community-supported agriculture and bioenergy cooperatives.
4. **Monitoring and Evaluation:** Establish metrics for equity (e.g., diverse ownership), sustainability (e.g., carbon sequestration), and security impacts (e.g., import reductions), reporting annually under DPA frameworks.
These actions align with USDA's mandate under EO 13603 (§ 202) to coordinate agricultural resources for defense preparedness.
## IV. Expected Outcomes and Benefits
- **National Security:** Enhanced resilience in critical sectors, reducing vulnerabilities to disruptions.
- **Economic Equity:** Redistribution of wealth to base producers, revitalizing rural America and global peripheries.
- **Sustainability:** Regenerative systems improving soil, food, and energy security amid climate challenges.
## V. Conclusion
Security begins in organic cultivation. By exercising DPA authorities, the USDA can transform Cannabis from regulatory collateral to foundational infrastructure, fostering an efficient, equitable, and sustainable economy. This proposal calls for immediate action to prioritize these crops as strategic assets for America's future.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul J. von Hartmann
@projectpeace
## References
1. Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (50 U.S.C. § 4501 et seq.).
2. Executive Order 13603: National Defense Resources Preparedness (Federal Register, Vol. 77, No. 56, March 22, 2012).
3. Executive Order 12919: National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness (Federal Register, Vol. 59, No. 109, June 7, 1994; superseded by EO 13603).
4. 44 CFR Part 332: Voluntary Agreements Under Section 708 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as Amended.
5. Berkshares.org: Model for Regional Hard Currency Systems.
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