U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine (both D-VA) announced almost $600,000 in federal funding for a Virginia Tech project to expand the impact of the Appalachian Beginning Forest Farmer Coalition (ABFFC) by increasing membership and improving opportunities and capabilities among forest farmers.

AHPA has posted this free guidance to help tea and infusion product companies understand, navigate and mitigate liabilities related to California's Proposition 65 (the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986). Since July 2016, numerous companies that sell or manufacture tea and infusion products, primarily marketers of branded finished products, have been the subject of complaints alleging violation of California's Prop 65 for failure to provide the required warnings.

Nominations are now being accepted for the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) 2020 Awards. The awards will be presented at the Annual AHPA Member Meeting and Breakfast on March 4, 2020 at the Natural Products Expo West trade show in Anaheim, CA.

AHPA President Michael McGuffin discussed opportunities and challenges for companies marketing hemp and cannabidiol (CBD) in products labeled as dietary supplements at the 26th Annual Hemp Industries Association Conference (HIACON) held in Charlotte, NC this week.

In comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week, AHPA continued to encourage the agency to expand its use of its crop grouping regulations by including more botanical commodities in two proposed new crop groups to help ensure that all of the minor crop botanical commodities marketed in the U.S. are covered by federal regulations.

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) has assessed an article issued today by Consumer Reports (CR) on its analytical review of 16 echinacea and 13 turmeric products. AHPA has found that CR relied on arbitrary or internal standards for its analysis, apparently in order to support its preconceived view of herbal supplements, expressed by repeating in today’s article the false myth of ‘lack of regulation’ of dietary supplements.

FDA announced today that, during the first six months following the general January 1, 2020, compliance date for the new nutrition labeling regulations for conventional foods and dietary supplements, it plans to work cooperatively with manufacturers to meet the new requirements and will not focus on enforcement actions during that time. Note that manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales already had an extra year to comply – until January 1, 2021.

The October 2019 AHPA Report includes recent CBD advocacy, AHPA at IADSA, foreign cGMP inspection trends, nutrition labeling enforcement discretion advocacy, nutrition labeling webinar, AHPA events at SupplySide West and more.

This week, the four leading trade associations representing the U.S. dietary supplement industry joined forces to urge Congress to take action to ensure consumer safety and provide legal clarity in the cannabidiol (CBD) product marketplace. In a letter, the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), and United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA) called on Congress “to pass legislation to clarify that CBD derived from the hemp plant is a lawful dietary ingredient if the dietary supplement containing the CBD meets established product safety and quality criteria.”