Farm Bill Should Address Cannabis And Barriers To Minorities Says House Agriculture Chairman

House Agriculture Chairman David Scott said Thursday that the 2023 farm bill should address the barriers facing small businesses and Black entrepreneurs when trying to start legal cannabis companies under state law.

“Here we are, the fastest growing agricultural product, between hemp and cannabis,” Scott said, (D-Ga), per Roll Call. “We're also going into our farm bill. We've got to address this issue. We can no longer hide it.” 

America produced $824 million of hemp In 2021, the USDA confirmed upon the release of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) 2021 Hemp Acreage and Production Survey in its National Hemp Report.

Some of those barriers facing small farmers and Black business people include high startup costs, underfunded state social equity programs and the lack of access to banking, Amber Littlejohn, executive director of the Minority Cannabis Business Association told Scott and other members of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Consumer Protections and Financial Institutions.

Congress has previously used legislation that reauthorizes agriculture and nutrition programs to address the legal status of cannabis. The 2018 Farm Bill law made it legal to grow hemp as an agricultural crop.

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However, jurisdiction over policies addressing cannabis cut across committees, potentially complicating Scott’s current efforts.  

Barriers To Small And Minority Farmers

Scott asked Littlejohn to further elaborate on the barriers to entry that small and minority farmers face trying to get into the cannabis industry.

Littlejohn said that state-sponsored social equity programs designed to help minority communities harmed by drug policies have fallen short. Only 15 of the 37 states with legal recreational or medical marijuana programs have equity programs, and none of those are well-funded enough to defray the high startup costs. 

“What we've seen is they’re rolling out these equity programs, but the funding is not there,” Littlejohn said. “There is a clock ticking on the amount of time that people have to get their businesses up and running.” 

In Scott’s home state of Georgia, would-be cannabis business owners must pay $200,000 just to apply for a license to grow or process hemp, Littlejohn explained. Only four African Americans applied for licenses, Littlejohn said, and the state did not approve a single one of them.