According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) latest survey, even though more states, and certain congressional members, pursued bans of consumable hemp, the industry grew significantly in 2024.
USDA’s National Hemp Report, conducted annually by USDA to evaluate the state of the economy, revealed that the number of acres of hemp grown in the United States last year was 45,294 – up 64 percent since 2023. The industry value increased by about 40%, reaching $445,000,000.
Since hemp has been legalized federally under the 2018 Farm Bill (the Farm Bill), farmers have primarily grown for the flower. This accounted for 93 percent. Although flower is sold in raw form, the majority of it is used to extract cannabinoids such as CBD.
In 2024, the farmers produced 20.8 million pounds from 11 827 acres of flowering hemp. That’s a growth by 159 percent over 2023, when they only made 8 million.
The value of the dollar in 2024 will be approximately #hemp The US production under cover and in open air totaled $445 Million, a 40% increase from 2023. View more #AgStats in the National Hemp Report ➡️https://t.co/xZyOr0tj5x
— National Agricultural Statistics Service (@usda_nass) April 17, 2025
That puts the market is a precarious position, with so much value concentrated in a sector of the hemp economy that’s increasingly under threat at the state and federal level as lawmakers seek to curb unregulated consumables—particularly intoxicating cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC that have grown in popularity.
Farmers produced 18855 acres for hemp fiber in the last year. This is a 56 per cent increase. The yield from these plants dropped by 21 per cent, to 3205 pounds an acre. The value of hemp fibre fell by 2 percent in 2023 due to the decline in prices.
Farmers will produce 3.4 millions pounds of grain by 2024. Hemp grain value grew 13 percent, to $2.6million.
USDA data showed that farmers who grow cannabis for seed experienced a significant increase in production last year. In 2024, hemp seed production will reach 2,160 acres. This represents a 61% increase over the previous year. Overall, the value of the hemp-seed market increased 482 per cent to $16,9 millions.
USDA launched its first annual survey in 2021, and it updated the questionnaire in 2022 before distributing it to farmers and releasing a report with findings that showed significant declines in the value and production of the crop in 2022. It followed up with another survey last year.
As the fate of the consumable hemp market remains murky amid legislative pushback, a congressional committee held a hearing on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this month—with a hemp industry expert explaining how the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products.
The FDA has refused to set rules that would allow the federally-legal hemp plant to be sold as food or nutritional supplement.
One potential legislative solution that U.S. Hemp Roundtable’s Jonathan Miller noted to the committee is a bipartisan bill Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) filed last year that would create a federal regulatory framework for hemp-derived cannabinoids.
This legislation empowers states to establish their own regulations for CBD products, while empowering FDA in order to make sure that safety standards on the market are being met.
In the absence of FDA rules, states from California to Florida have pushed for sweeping changes to their own laws around consumable hemp products. In the absence of FDA rules, states from California to Florida have pushed for sweeping changes in their own laws around consumable hemp products.
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Meanwhile, as lawmakers prepare to once again take up large-scale agriculture legislation this session, congressional researchers in January provided an overview of the policy landscape around hemp—emphasizing the divides around various cannabis-related proposals among legislators, stakeholders and advocates.
Senate Democrats released the long-awaited draft of 2024 Farm Bill last year that contained several proposed changes to federal hemp laws—including provisions to amend how the legal limit of THC is measured and reducing regulatory barriers for farmers who grow the crop for grain or fiber. Nevertheless, some stakeholders expressed concerns that the bill’s intent was to eliminate a wide range of hemp products currently on the market.
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Kimzy Nanney provided the photo.
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