Hemp Feed, Human Health, and the Kansas Legislature: My Research and Why It Needs a Hearing

Hemp
Written By Jordan Gold

For months I've ridden one question hard, through statute books, feed studies and citation checks: can Kansas farmers feed hemp to their livestock safely, and what would it take to make that legal? The result is two research papers, both attached below. On September 29, 2026, I sent them to the people who write and enforce Kansas farm law. As of today, October 11, I haven't heard back from anyone. Not a no, not a maybe, not a form letter. Just a quiet inbox and the wind. So here it is in the open: what the research says, where the law stands, and how you can help get it a hearing.

Hemp Products as Livestock FeedResearch review & policy white paper · 16 pages · Jordan Gold · 2nd edition (v2)Download the PDF →From Feed to Fork: CBD Residues & Human HealthResearch brief · 14 pages · Jordan Gold · 2nd edition (v2)Download the PDF →

What I sent, and to whom

On September 29, 2026, I emailed both papers to eight members of the Kansas House and Senate, the Secretary of Agriculture's office, and a Kansas Department of Agriculture staff member. The email summarized the main findings, offered to answer questions, and asked them to consider the papers as the agriculture committees and the Department look at hemp feed policy.

Twelve days later, I haven't received a single reply that I can find: no questions and no acknowledgment.

I know legislators get a lot of mail, and I'm not here to call anyone out by name. Busy is the honest condition of anybody doing real work, in a statehouse or on a tractor. But this is a Kansas crop, a Kansas law, and a Kansas economic opportunity, and silence won't move it forward. Silence never cleared a feed ingredient or paid a grower. So I'm taking the research public and asking other Kansans to help.

A note on the editionsAfter sending the papers, I had every citation in both re-audited against its source. The second editions attached here tighten a number of imprecise points and fix several citations, for example a federal feed limit that had been credited to the wrong source and one milk-residue statement that overstated the data. The main findings and policy options are the same.

Study 1: Hemp products as livestock feed

Start at the feed bunk, because that's where a farmer decides whether any of this is real. Hemp Products as Livestock Feed: Nutrition, Animal Health, Residue Safety, Sustainability, and Policy Options for Kansas is a secondary review of peer-reviewed and regulatory evidence, written for Kansas legislators and KDA staff. Its key findings:

  • Nutrition: Hemp seed cake is a solid mid-protein feed, but it doesn't replace soybean meal. It runs about 37% crude protein vs. about 47% for soybean meal, with much less lysine and much more fiber. For cattle, its energy value is comparable to canola meal, and it supplies rumen-bypass protein.
  • Performance: Results are mixed and depend on the dose. Seed products at up to about 20% of the diet reliably raise omega-3s in eggs without hurting lay. In feedlot heifers, 20% cake cut daily gain and feed efficiency by about 8% compared with distillers grains, and 15% cake reduced broiler growth. Swine evidence is still limited to reviews.
  • Residues: Seed and flower are very different. Heifers fed 20% seed cake for 111 days had low fat residues (6–10 ng/g), and the study's authors called the chance of a consumer reaching an acute reference dose "remote." Flower, leaf, silage and spent biomass leave measurable THC and CBD in milk and fat, in several studies above Europe's acute reference dose for THC.
  • Regulation: Hemp isn't federally approved as feed for cattle, swine, sheep or goats. The only US definition, AAFCO T71.5, covers mechanically extracted hemp seed meal for laying hens, at up to 20% of the diet, with limits of ≤2 ppm total THC and ≤20 ppm total CBD.
  • Policy options for Kansas: fund K-State residue research; clarify how KDA would treat T71.5 hen feeds; pass a conditional law that turns on for each species only after FDA or AAFCO recognition; set testing standards; and support submissions to the new AAFCO review pathway at K-State Olathe. The paper lays out the trade-offs of each.

Study 2: CBD residues and people

Now follow the feed past the gate and onto the dinner plate, which is where the real worry lives. From Feed to Fork: Human Health Effects of CBD Residues in Meat, Milk, and Eggs follows the whole chain: animal eats hemp, CBD lands in meat, milk or eggs, a person eats that food, and the CBD acts (or doesn't) in the body. Its bottom line is that at the amounts people actually eat, residue CBD isn't expected to have measurable health effects, positive or negative.

  • Seed-based feeds leave very low or undetectable residues. Getting even 25 mg of CBD, a dose with no demonstrated effect, would take thousands of kilograms of beef fat.
  • Flower, leaf, silage and spent biomass leave far more. Even with worst-case values and no withdrawal period, a person would need about 0.5–25 kg of fat, liver or milk for 25 mg of CBD, and far more for clinically studied doses.
  • THC is the real issue for non-seed feeds. It exceeds Europe's acute safety threshold long before CBD gets anywhere near a studied dose.
  • Regulators treat CBD intake as something to limit. EFSA's 2026 provisional safe level is about 2 mg/day for purified CBD, and FDA has warned that people could be unknowingly exposed to CBD through meat, milk and eggs.
  • What it means for policy: Make the case for hemp feed on nutrition (seed protein and omega-3s), not on health claims about residues. Use the near-zero residues from seed feeds to justify rules that treat each hemp material separately. Treat animal-welfare benefits as a hypothesis that still needs larger, independent trials.
Seed-based hemp feed is the low-risk option, and it's the one Kansas still hasn't cleared.— Jordan Gold

Where Kansas law stands

  • The statute. Under the Commercial Industrial Hemp Act, K.S.A. 2-3908 makes it unlawful to make or sell any hemp product "intended for human or animal consumption" that contains a hemp-derived ingredient prohibited under the Kansas food, drug and cosmetic act or the commercial feeding stuffs act [1, 2]. Feed ingredients follow the federal and AAFCO rules described below. Since no hemp ingredient is cleared for most species, that blocks most hemp feed in Kansas, and KDA hasn't publicly said whether T71.5 hen feed can now be registered.
  • The bill that tried. HB 2168 was introduced in 2023 to allow "hemp fiber, grain and seeds to be used as food for livestock, poultry and pets." KDA testified as an opponent on March 15, 2023. On January 25, 2024, the House agriculture committee replaced it with a substitute that only lowered license fees, and the bill died [3].
  • 2025–26 session. We found no bill on hemp in animal feed. SB 292 (age-21 sales, packaging and labeling for hemp-derived cannabinoid products) and HB 2135 (a KDA-requested bill tying parts of the hemp act to an active state plan) both died in committee [4, 5].
  • Who regulates what. Since January 1, 2025, USDA licenses Kansas hemp producers directly, and processors register with the State Fire Marshal [6].

The federal picture: FDA, AAFCO and the new hemp definition

  • FDA: Any animal food ingredient needs an approved food additive petition, a GRAS conclusion, or a listing in the AAFCO Official Publication. FDA also says adding THC or CBD to animal food sold across state lines is prohibited [7]. FDA's Q&A still says no AAFCO definition exists for any hemp substance. That line looks out of date now that T71.5 has been published [8, 9].
  • AAFCO T71.5: Hemp Seed Meal, Mechanically Extracted covers laying hens only, at up to 20% of the diet, with no more than 20 ppm total CBD and 2 ppm total THC [8]. It appeared in the AAFCO Official Publication in August 2025, but each state still has to accept it. The Hemp Feed Coalition is preparing a ruminant application next [9]. A new AAFCO review track run by K-State Olathe (SRIS) opened in October 2025 and is billed as about twice as fast as the traditional process [10].
  • The November 2025 hemp definition: P.L. 119-37 (enacted Nov. 12, 2025) changes the federal hemp limit from 0.3% delta-9 THC to 0.3% total THC, including THCA. It also explicitly defines industrial hemp as hemp grown for stalk, grain, oil, cake, hull and other non-cannabinoid seed products. A September 2026 continuing resolution (P.L. 119-103) pushed most of the change to December 11, 2026 [11]. For feed, that sharpens the line Kansas law should draw: seed-derived ingredients on one side, cannabinoid-bearing flower and biomass on the other.
Why this matters for KansasKansas harvested 2,700 acres of fiber hemp in 2025 and produced 20.4 million pounds, roughly 30% of the US total. Farmers were paid an average of $0.11/lb, about half the national average [12]. A legal feed market for hemp seed meal would give Kansas growers another outlet for grain and dual-purpose crops. Right now, that market is closed.

What I am asking Kansas to do

  1. Ask KDA to state publicly whether commercial feeds containing AAFCO T71.5 hemp seed meal can be registered for laying hens in Kansas, and amend the law narrowly if they can't.
  2. Fund K-State residue and withdrawal research on seed-derived feeds at commercial feeding rates, especially fat in cattle and residues in eggs.
  3. Pass a conditional ("trigger") law that allows a specific hemp ingredient for a specific species once FDA or AAFCO recognizes it, with KDA registration and testing.
  4. Set testing standards for total THC and CBD in feed ingredients, starting from the T71.5 limits.
  5. Back Kansas submissions to the SRIS pathway at K-State Olathe [10].

None of this requires Kansas to get ahead of federal law. It requires Kansas to be ready when federal law moves, and to stop treating hemp seed meal as if it were hemp flower. That's my opinion, and I'll stand behind it. I can't control who opens my email. I can control whether the work is honest, sourced and out in daylight for anyone to check. That part is done. What's left belongs to the people we elect, and to the Kansans who remind them who they work for.

Contact your Kansas legislators

Find your state senator and representative by address, then send a short, polite note. Polite gets read. Loud gets filed. Feel free to copy or adapt this one:

Dear [Senator/Representative LAST NAME],

I'm a constituent in [CITY], Kansas. Kansas grows about 30% of the nation's fiber hemp, but we still have no clear path for hemp in livestock feed, not even for the hemp seed meal AAFCO has already defined for laying hens.

I'm asking you to support (1) a clear KDA position on registering AAFCO T71.5 hemp seed meal for laying-hen feed, (2) funding for K-State residue research on seed-based hemp feeds, and (3) a conditional law that opens hemp feed for each species once FDA or AAFCO recognizes it.

Jordan Gold's research review and residue brief lay out the evidence: loracing.com/research

Thank you,
[YOUR NAME]
[ADDRESS / ZIP]
Find My Legislators

Key takeaways

  1. Seed-based hemp feeds are nutritionally useful and leave very low residues. Flower and biomass feeds are a different risk.
  2. Residue CBD won't affect the people who eat it, positive or negative. THC is the exposure to manage in non-seed feeds.
  3. Kansas law (K.S.A. 2-3908) still blocks most hemp feed [1]. The 2023 fix in HB 2168 was removed before the bill died [3].
  4. AAFCO T71.5 exists for laying hens [8, 9]. Kansas can be ready for the next approvals instead of waiting years after them.
  5. I sent the research on Sept. 29 and haven't had a reply yet. Your note to your legislator can help get it read.

Sources

  1. K.S.A. 2-3908, unlawful hemp products (Commercial Industrial Hemp Act), Kansas Legislature: https://kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/laws/002_000_0000_chapter/002_039_0000_article/002_039_0008_section/002_039_0008_k/
  2. K.S.A. 2-3901, Commercial Industrial Hemp Act definitions, Kansas Legislature: https://kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/laws/002_000_0000_chapter/002_039_0000_article/002_039_0001_section/002_039_0001_k/
  3. HB 2168 (2023–24) bill history, testimony and versions, Kansas Legislature: https://www.kslegislature.gov/b2023_24/bills/HB2168/
  4. SB 292 (2025–26), Kansas Legislature: https://www.kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/bills/SB292/
  5. HB 2135 (2025–26), Kansas Legislature: https://www.kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/bills/HB2135/
  6. Kansas Department of Agriculture, Industrial Hemp: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/plant-protection-weed-control/industrial-hemp
  7. FDA, FDA Regulation of Cannabis and Cannabis-Derived Products, Including CBD (Q&A #10 and #25): https://www.fda.gov/news-events/public-health-focus/fda-regulation-cannabis-and-cannabis-derived-products-including-cannabidiol-cbd
  8. AAFCO, Ingredient Definitions Committee report, Jan. 2024 (T71.5 Hemp Seed Meal text): https://www.aafco.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/6.-Minutes.Ingredient-Definitions-Committee-Report-Jan.2024.pdf (PDF)
  9. Hemp Feed Coalition, hemp seed meal for laying hens published in the AAFCO Official Publication (Aug. 7, 2025): https://hempfeedcoalition.org/2025/08/07/hemp-feed-coalition-announces-historic-approval-of-hemp-seed-meal-for-laying-hens-in-aafco-official-publication/
  10. K-State Olathe, SRIS ingredient review pathway now open (Oct. 2025): https://olathe.k-state.edu/about/news/2025/october/sris-ingredient-review-pathway.html
  11. Congressional Research Service, Changes to the Statutory Definition of Hemp and Implications for Agricultural Policy (IF13136, updated Sept. 28, 2026): https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF13136.html (mirror of the CRS In Focus)
  12. USDA NASS, National Hemp Report, April 16, 2026: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/hempan26.pdf (PDF)
  13. Kansas Legislature, Find My Legislators: https://www.kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/find-my-legislators/

The attached papers are secondary research reviews by Jordan Gold, not peer-reviewed studies or legal advice. Study figures come from the papers, which cite their primary sources in full. Policy status was checked on the cited official pages on Oct. 11, 2026. Bills and rules change, so check the source before relying on them.

Jordan Gold
Previous

Trump’s Russian Diesel Deal: What Was Agreed, What Wasn’t, and What It Means for Ukraine and the Farm Belt
Next

Hemp Decortication Machines: Costs, Features, and What Hemp Is Separated Into