With feds taking over hemp regulation, plant samplers needed for Wisconsin

In the summer of 2020, Jake Mohr worked as an industrial hemp inspector for the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Mohr, who lives in Onalaska, said he enjoyed traveling to hemp farms and greenhouses to take plant samples, which he passed along to DATCP's lab in Madison to ensure the crop was within the legal limit of THC.

"I enjoyed meeting hemp producers around southwestern Wisconsin and kind of seeing the varied types of operations they have. It's a pretty plant as well," he said.

When DATCP officials announced in September that the state was handing over regulation of the industry to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mohr decided to look into what it takes to become an inspector at the federal level. Mohr said he's currently working for an organic certification company that does work with hemp producers and he's hoping his employer will want to add THC sampling to their services.

Rob Richard, president of the Wisconsin Hemp Alliance, said the industry will likely need a similar number of private sampling agents in order to keep up with demand.

Richard said he's confident the free market will lead to the most fair sampling costs for hemp producers in the long run. Instead of being forced to pay the $250 fee set by the state's hemp program, producers will be able to shop around for the best price.

"If you've got people up in Rhinelander where the closest sample agent is based in Madison, let's say, and they charge by the mile to get there plus whatever the sample cost is plus the actual processing cost that the lab charges, then you could be looking at a sample cost that's higher than what it was to get certified under (DATCP)," Mohr said.

After completing his certification in October, Mohr said he started to worry that he would be the only certified sampling agent in the state when the program transitions to USDA on Jan. 1.

He said there was no cost to go through the online certification, which consisted of several online learning modules that took him about two hours to complete.

Compared to DATCP's three-day, in-person training that he went through in 2020, Mohr said the USDA's program was almost too easy and it doesn't include a lot of direction on how to get started.

He said he's also worried about the implications of traveling around the state with a crop that could potentially have an illegal level of THC in it.

Richard said he isn't surprised to see the USDA take a more relaxed approach than the state did with training sampling agents. He said after the 2018 Farm Bill made industrial hemp a legal agricultural commodity, the agency has been able to start treating hemp almost like any other crop.

"They are a federal agency. Their size is huge and I just don't think they can get too into the minutiae of 'where can we regulate,' versus 'what is the minimum we need to do to ensure that the crop is being tested and is meeting the legal obligations and doing it in a safe way,'" Richard said.