Business
After years of rapid growth, California's almond industry struggles amid low prices
For much of the last decade, almonds have been such a lucrative crop that growers and investment firms have poured money into planting new orchards across vast stretches of California farmland.
Now, the almond boom has fizzled and the industry has entered a slump. Prices have dropped over the last several years, and the state’s total almond acreage has started to decrease as growers have begun to tear out orchards and plant other crops.
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In a sign of the troubles besetting the industry, one large almond-growing conglomerate has declared bankruptcy.
In a series of Chapter 11 filings in federal bankruptcy court, Trinitas Farming and other affiliated companies said that record-low almond prices and high interest rates contributed to their “serious liquidity constraints.”
The group of companies said in a court document filed Feb. 19 that they own 7,856 acres of almond orchards in five counties, including Solano, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Fresno and Tulare. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings, these orchards are expected to be put up for sale.
“When the price is low, now we start seeing the results of it. And certainly the fear is that Trinitas is the tip of the iceberg,” said Jake Wenger, general manager of the Salida Hulling Assn., which runs an almond-hulling plant in Modesto.
Prices for premium almonds have dropped from nearly $4 a pound a decade ago to about $2 a pound or less, Wenger said. Though the low prices are affecting all growers, those that are being hit especially hard are the many investor groups that bought land when prices were high and now have large debts, he said.
“The question becomes, do some of these banks call on some of these loans? And that’s really going to be a concern for a lot of people in the industry,” Wenger said. “Nobody got more indebted to the banks than a lot of these investor groups.”
A highway in Buttonwillow, Calif., bisects Kern County growing fields, with a large almond orchard on the left.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The group that filed for bankruptcy includes Trinitas Advantaged Agriculture Partners IV, LP, an investment fund that was formed and managed by Redwood City-based Trinitas Partners, a private equity investment company. It also includes the investment fund’s subsidiary Trinitas Farming, based in Oakdale, and 17 other subsidiaries.
The group’s lawyers said in court documents that the investment fund was organized by Trinitas Partners in 2015 to develop and operate almond farms in the Central Valley. It said the companies were ”well-positioned to become profitable ventures” but that they were ultimately “unable to raise necessary capital” through investments or from potential sales of assets. The entities’ reported debts total approximately $180 million.
Trinitas Partners itself was not among the companies that filed for bankruptcy. Representatives of the companies did not respond to requests for comments about the matter.
“I really firmly believe they’re not going to be the only ones facing financial struggles,” Wenger said.
The low prices appear to be making it difficult for some investments to pencil out. Wenger and others in the almond business have noticed some orchards abandoned in parts of the Central Valley over the last year, with rows of unkempt trees now filled with weeds.
“We’re already seeing people walk away,” Wenger said.
He said he believes almond prices will eventually rebound, but it’s not clear when that turnaround might come.
“I certainly don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet,” Wenger said.
While various factors have contributed to the situation, Wenger and others say some of the issues weighing on prices include an oversupply of almonds after years of rapid growth.
A grower examines a cluster of almonds in a Manteca, Calif., orchard in June 2022.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
California produces about 80% of the world’s supply of almonds. And according to federal data, the state’s harvested almond orchards skyrocketed from 760,000 acres in 2011 to more than 1.3 million acres in 2022.
In the last two years, though, annual mapping of orchards has shown that California’s total almond acreage has started to decline.
Over the last decade, the almond boom coincided with growing concerns about water in California. When growers and investment companies bought land and drilled wells to pump groundwater in the Central Valley, the expanding nut orchards locked in long-term water demands and added to the strains on the state’s declining aquifers.
Wenger said he thinks it’s possible that if some of these orchards come out of production, groundwater levels could rise in places.
“It depends on what cropping patterns come in, and what happens next,” he said. “But it does have a potential that we could see benefits to groundwater.”
Critics who have questioned the amount of water dedicated to growing almonds include Bill Maher, who recently drew laughs on his show when he urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to “take on Big Almond.”
The environmental group Food and Water Watch has also urged the state to limit the expansion of almond orchards and other water-intensive crops such as alfalfa. Chirag Bhakta, the group’s California director, said the expansion of almonds has “locked us into a situation where we’re growing way too many of these thirsty tree nuts in parts of California,” adding to the problems of overpumping of groundwater.
Bhakta said it’s hard to know if the bankruptcy case points to more trouble ahead in the industry. But he said it represents an “opportunity for us to shift what’s been grown on that land to actually reflect what’s best for California” and the state’s water needs.
Representatives of the almond industry have defended the crop’s water use, pointing to agricultural statistics showing almonds cover 21% of irrigated agricultural land in California but account for 14% of agricultural water use. They have also noted that in addition to the nuts, almond hulls are used for cattle feed.
In the coming years, California’s agriculture industry will face water limits under the requirements of the state’s 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The law requires local agencies in many areas to develop plans to curb overpumping by 2040.
Researchers with the Public Policy Institute of California have estimated that addressing the groundwater deficit in the San Joaquin Valley will probably require taking at least half a million acres of farmland out of production, and they’ve called for expanding efforts to help convert farmland to other uses, such as solar development or habitat areas.
Aside from water constraints, the almond industry has faced other challenges, including tariffs in China and other countries, as well as shipping bottlenecks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There has just been a glut in the almond market for a couple of years now,” said Caity Peterson, associate director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center.
“It’s possible that we have hit peak almond,” Peterson said. “The industry will probably right-size itself to where the supply better meets the demand and it’s not oversupply, like we’ve got right now.”
Some experts say the almond industry is likely to bounce back. Analysts with Rabobank wrote in an analysis this month that “a strong rebound in almond prices is expected over the next 12 to 18 months.”
International markets have a big influence. According to the most recent crop data for the 12 months that ended in July 2023, 72% of the state’s almonds were exported, while 28% were sold domestically.
California’s total almond acreage has gone down the last two years mostly because of decreases in new plantings, said Rick Kushman, a spokesperson for the Almond Board of California.
“Orchards last about 25 years, then growers replant, if they decide to. It’s possible that financing has been harder to get and it is surely more expensive right now,” Kushman said in an email. “Shipments have been strong in recent months, but we are a long way from seeing if that will affect planting decisions.”
There are roughly 7,600 almond farms in the state, and about 70% of the state’s orchards are under 100 acres, according to the Almond Board of California.
Wenger said those who are better suited to weather this sort of downturn are family-run businesses that own their land debt-free.
Almond growers aren’t the only ones in agriculture who have been dealing with tough economic conditions.
“Walnut prices are terrible. Grape prices are terrible,” Wenger said. “Pistachios are not doing great. So we have all these crops that are starting to suffer.”
The fall of the Trinitas almond business follows the recent news that the large fruit grower Prima Wawona also filed for bankruptcy.
Some growers in the San Joaquin Valley have chosen to replace almond trees with pistachio orchards.
Blossoms fill an almond tree branch in an orchard near Sanger. California produces about 80% of the world’s supply of almonds.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
Still, most of California’s almond orchards remain, and almond trees have been blooming with white and pink flowers in the Central Valley.
“Agriculture in general is seeing some very difficult times,” said Bill Lyons, a farmer in Stanislaus County who once served as state agriculture secretary under Gov. Gray Davis.
On his family’s century-old ranch, they have a cattle operation and grow a wide variety of crops.
“We’ve been in the almond business for over 25 years, and we’re seeing unprecedented low prices for multiple years, and very high expenses,” Lyons said. “And when you combine the two, it’s extremely difficult for any almond farmer to make a profitable living.”
He said where some landowners have abandoned their trees, it’s a problem for neighboring growers because the untended orchards can harbor pests — such as navel orangeworm — that can spread to nearby orchards.
Lyons said his family plans to keep growing almonds.
“Hopefully, the almond price will gain momentum,” Lyons said. “I have confidence in the almond industry, but it’s definitely going to be a serious bump in the road as we travel through to next year or so.”
Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.
Business
What Trump Gained, and Didn’t, From China
Andrew here. With President Trump set to arrive back in Washington on Friday, we’re taking a hard look at what his high-stakes summit in Beijing actually achieved. The TL;DR: It didn’t lead to the “grand bargain” many had anticipated.
While there were optics of cooperation between Trump and Xi Jinping, concrete deals — including on Nvidia chips or tariffs — were few. Trump just said that he rejected a proposal from Xi, China’s leader, to help broker a peace between the U.S. and Iran, leaving the critical Strait of Hormuz effectively shut.
Ultimately, the president is coming home to rising oil prices and a slumping bond market.
What was gained (and wasn’t) in Beijing
President Trump departed Beijing a few hours ago, hailing “fantastic trade deals” struck during his two-day summit.
Still, many analysts and investors appear underwhelmed by a lack of details or breakthroughs on key issues like tariffs, Iran and tech restrictions. The summit seems to have fallen short of already diminished expectations.
For the 17 business leaders who accompanied Trump on the trip, the deal flow also appeared thinner than what was announced on his last presidential trip to China, in 2017.
Here are the highlights so far, Grady McGregor writes.
Nvidia and Citi apparently scored wins. Shares in Nvidia, the chipmaker, hit a record on Thursday on reports that Washington had cleared 10 Chinese companies to buy its H200 semiconductors.
That said, Beijing, which is looking to champion domestic rivals like Huawei, has not signaled it would be open to permitting the sales — an issue echoed on Friday by Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative.
And on the eve of the summit, Beijing approved Citi’s application to operate a securities business in China, ending a yearslong regulatory application process. It is unclear whether the presence of Jane Fraser, the bank’s C.E.O., on the trip played any role in Beijing’s decision. Citi shares gained on Thursday.
Boeing landed an order for 200 aircraft, a deal Trump highlighted in a Fox News interview last night.
But shares in the plane maker fell sharply in premarket trading on Friday: The number was short of analysts’ forecasts of at least 300 planes.
The Board of Trade looks like a go. The Washington-Beijing body would manage trade in sectors such as aviation, energy, medical equipment and agriculture. Greer said it would aim to reduce tariffs on roughly $30 billion worth of goods.
He added that he expected the tariff truce the countries struck last fall in South Korea to be extended.
What’s still unclear:
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Major cryptocurrency regulation clears a key hurdle. The Senate Banking Committee passed the Clarity Act, which has been promoted by crypto companies and investors like the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The bill heads to the full Senate, where it faces a less certain fate.
Federal prosecutors will drop criminal charges against India’s richest man. The move to end the case against the businessman Gautam Adani came after one of his lawyers — Robert Giuffra, who is also one of President Trump’s personal lawyers — met with Justice Department officials, The Times reports. (A presentation by Giuffra said that Adani was willing to invest $10 billion in the U.S., though sources told The Times that the withdrawal of charges wasn’t tied to the offer.) A settlement in a parallel case by the S.E.C. was announced Thursday in which Adani agreed to pay $6 million.
Bill Ackman bets big on Microsoft. The billionaire financier said on Friday that he had acquired a major stake in the tech giant and that he believed in the long-term prospects of its productivity software and its spending on A.I. Other hedge fund managers have bet the opposite: TCI, the firm run by Chris Hohn, recently sold off an $8 billion stake in Microsoft.
The OpenAI trial heads to a conclusion
The high-stakes legal showdown between Elon Musk and OpenAI is finally headed to the nine-person jury.
Over more than seven hours of closing arguments, lawyers for each side sought to paint the other as untrustworthy.
Here are some of the highlights of Thursday’s proceedings.
Can anyone trust Sam Altman? That was again the central attack by Steven Molo, Musk’s lead lawyer, who has argued that Altman, the OpenAI chief, deceived Musk, a fellow founder, about plans to convert the company from nonprofit to for-profit.
Molo told jurors that five witnesses had called Altman a “liar,” and he hammered home his point with a creative metaphor:
Imagine that you’re on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail, and it’s over a gorge. There’s a river that’s 100 feet below and it looks a little scary, but a woman standing by the entry to the bridge says, “Don’t worry, the bridge is built on Sam Altman’s version of the truth.” Would you walk across that bridge? I don’t think many people would.
Can jurors trust Musk’s version of events? OpenAI’s lawyers, from the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, argued that the billionaire knew about the company’s plans for for-profit conversion earlier than he admitted to and that the statute of limitations for his claims had passed.
Referring to Musk’s claim that he hadn’t read most of a 2018 email about OpenAI’s plans to seek outside investment, Sarah Eddy, a lawyer for OpenAI, said:
Here you have one of the most sophisticated businessmen in the history of the world and he claims he didn’t read a four-page summary term sheet.
The outcome of the trial could drastically alter the A.I. landscape. If OpenAI loses, its operations could be disrupted at a time when rivals are gaining steam.
Figma’s C.E.O. on surviving the “SaaSpocalypse”
The artificial intelligence boom has been a tale of haves and have-nots. Some companies have benefited mightily, most recently the chip maker Cerebras, whose stock shot up 68 percent in its debut. But many enterprise software providers have been walloped.
One of them was Figma, the design-software maker whose shares have tumbled since it went public last year. But as it reported strong quarterly earnings on Thursday, its C.E.O., Dylan Field, spoke with Michael de la Merced about why he believed his company was poised to survive, and even thrive. Here are our takeaways after the conversation.
Remember the “SaaSpocalypse”? Referring to “software-as-a-service,” it referred to investors’ worries that tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code would devastate the entire category of subscription-based software companies, like Figma.
Figma appears to have dispelled at least some of those worries:
The company’s results held up after an A.I.-related change in pricing. For most of its existence, Figma charged companies per user (known as seat-based pricing). But A.I. agents that can do work once reserved for humans promise to drastically reduce how many “seats” customers need to pay for.
In mid-March, Figma switched to a system in which it charged users for how much A.I. they used past a certain amount. The company said that more than 75 percent of its business users kept using A.I. tools despite the cap.
The result: Shares in Figma are up more than 10 percent in premarket trading since the report.
“Market narratives are market narratives,” Field said to DealBook about the SaaSpocalypse sell-off, playing down the investor concern while pointing out Figma’s strong performance.
“The way we see it, A.I. is going to create more software than ever,” he said. He added, “Design matters.”
But Field remains on guard. Makers of A.I. models have muscled into Figma’s territory, notably Anthropic, which in March introduced Claude Design, a tool seen as a competitor of sorts. (Only three days before, Mike Krieger, a senior Anthropic executive, resigned from Figma’s board; Field reportedly complained about the situation.)
“You have to take a company like Anthropic seriously,” Field told DealBook.
Picture of the day
The musical playlist for Thursday’s state dinner in Beijing for President Trump drew big buzz on social media. It contained some Trump favorites, including the Village People hit “Y.M.C.A.”
Talking A.I. with Circle’s C.E.O.
Every week, we’re asking a leader how he or she uses artificial intelligence. This week, Jeremy Allaire, who leads the stablecoin issuer Circle, told Sarah Kessler that he had built a “C.E.O. prioritizer.” The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
How do you personally use A.I. at home or work?
One interesting one is a C.E.O. prioritizer. If there’s a request for me to meet someone or do something, you go to the agent and it interrogates you about it and does background research. Then it assigns a one-to-five score, with one being “Completely ignore it” and five being “This is a highly strategic use of your time.”
Circle wants to be part of the infrastructure that helps A.I. agents spend money. Tell me more about that.
The primary units of work in the economic system are going to be executed by A.I. agents. And increasingly, it’s going to be agents that are operating in teams.
You need an economic system to support that. We need a way for one agent to access and use the services of another agent. For example, you might have research data in a particular domain of biology, and I want to make that available to A.I.s to consume. And it’s going to be 5 cents, 10 cents. Whatever it is, you receive that payment, and the A.I. then can consume that data and use it.
And this transaction would take place via stablecoin and not dollars, because there is less friction and these are tiny transactions?
There’s no payment system in the world except for something like USDC that can conduct a transaction for a fraction of a penny. Or even 5 cents or 10 cents. And it’s all programmable.
You said on your latest earnings call that 85 percent of your employees are using A.I. coding and automation tools. What does that look like?
We’re able to basically go through the entire software life cycle with A.I. agents conducting work. Agents are seeing feature requests, picking them up, coding and submitting the code for review. We have other agents that perform code review. Humans then obviously come in to do subsequent reviews.
What about outside of engineering?
It’s in every single function. If you want to build a creative strategy for a campaign, there’s a whole agentic workflow. If you are creating public communications content — we’re a regulated company, so we have very strict guidelines — there’s an A.I. that will vet all of your content and point out the issues with it.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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Investors led by Egon Durban, a C.E.O. of the tech investment firm Silver Lake, have reportedly struck a deal to buy 25 percent of the Las Vegas Raiders at a $9.9 billion valuation. (CNBC)
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Michael Carr, a longtime top M.&A. banker at Goldman Sachs, died on Tuesday. He was 68. (Bloomberg)
Politics, policy and regulation
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Boeing and Toyota are said to have donated $1 million each to fund a reality-TV video series starring the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. (WSJ)
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“In a City of Big Dreams, Many Young Adults See a Cloudy Future” (NYT)
We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.
Business
Why the infuriatingly catchy Kars4Kids jingle got yanked off the air in California
The frustratingly unforgettable Kars4kids jingle, which has been worming its way into listeners’ brains for decades, is officially banned from the airwaves in California.
While the 1-877-KARS4KIDS song has been called one of the most memorable jingles in history, a court has ruled it is misleading.
A California man took the group behind it to court, saying he donated an old car to Kars4Kids, thinking its value would be used to help underprivileged children. He didn’t know the money generated was used to support Oorah, a Jewish organization that helps fund young adult trips to Israel.
An Orange County court judge ruled late last week that the New Jersey-based group’s advertisements were misleading because they omitted the company’s religious affiliation and hid the charity’s true mission.
The charity organization violated state laws against false advertising and unfair competition, the court ruled.
“The failure to disclose that funds benefit adults and families — and that this support is contingent upon a specific religious affiliation — is a material omission,” the ruling states.
Kars4Kids must pull its advertisements from the state within 30 days. Any new advertisement in California must clearly disclose the nonprofit’s religious affiliation and specify for whom the money will be used, the court ruled.
A Kars4Kids spokesperson said the ruling is deeply flawed, and the organization will appeal.
“We believe this case was nothing more than a lawyer-driven attempt to siphon off charitable funds for their own gain,” the spokesperson said. “The law and the facts are clearly on our side.”
The jingle first aired in the 1990s and has been loved and loathed by listeners ever since.
It has been the subject of talk show commentary and featured in “The Simpsons.”
Most donations go to help Jewish youth and families, the company’s chief operating executive, Esti Landau, said during her testimony.
Oorah runs a matchmaking program for Jewish youth and funds gap year trips to Israel for 17- and 18-year-olds. The company also used donations to purchase a $16.5-million building in Israel.
“The evidence also shows that children, especially needy or underprivileged children, are not the recipients of the proceeds of the donations,” the ruling states.
Kars4Kids has made it easier to donate old cars to benefit children and families across the country, which includes continued support throughout young adulthood, the company spokesperson said.
This isn’t the first time Kars4Kids has faced accusations of misleading listeners. Oregon, Pennsylvania and other states have also found the charity organization has misleading solicitation practices.
Californians account for a quarter of the company’s funds, yet the nonprofit has limited programs in the state, according to court documents. The organization claims to help thousands of children, including hundreds in California, according to a Kars4Kids spokesperson.
The charity’s infamous tune was catchy enough to convince California resident Bruce Puterbaugh to donate a 2001 Volvo XC. The car was nonoperational and not under his name, but was left in his care.
The car was valued at $250, and Puterbaugh said he felt deceived when he found out the money wouldn’t help young children. He originally sued the company in 2021.
“I feel taken advantage of by the ad and information that was not there,” Puterbaugh said in his testimony.
A donor would have to navigate the nonprofit’s website to learn about its religious mission.
“These omissions are inherently deceptive,” the court ruling states. “Broadcasting this jingle repeatedly over two decades is fraudulent.”
A Kars4Kids spokesperson said that the company’s website clearly states its Jewish affiliation.
The court sided with Puterbaugh and ordered the nonprofit to pay him $250 as restitution for his donated vehicle.
Business
Some Medicare Patients Can Now Get Free CBD
The Trump administration has been making headlines for taking steps to loosen restrictions around cannabis, including legalizing it for medical use. Now it is beginning an experiment that places cannabis even more squarely into mainstream health care: thousands of Medicare patients soon will be able to get CBD, a nonintoxicating component, for free.
“ONE in FIVE adults used it in the past year, and many say it improved their chronic pain enormously,” President Trump wrote on social media last month in a post cheering the program.
The aim is to gather real-life evidence showing whether CBD can improve patients’ quality of life and, by extension, reduce health care costs, administration officials say.
CBD products are already popular with some Medicare-age patients. A 2024 study in Clinical Gerontologist found that 14.3 percent of patients 65 and older had used them in the past year. Patients usually purchase over-the-counter gummies and tinctures to ease anxiety, insomnia and chemo-related nausea.
“Millions of older adults are already integrating cannabinoid products into their health care routines, yet the health care system has almost no infrastructure to understand what they are spending, why they are using these products, or whether these expenditures reduce other health care costs,” said Sasha Kalcheff-Korn, the executive director of Realm of Caring, a nonprofit group that conducts research and promotes cannabinoid therapies.
Despite Mr. Trump’s ebullient endorsement, many doctors worry about encouraging the use of unapproved supplements to geriatric patients, who typically have multiple medical conditions and already take many medications, some of which could interact with CBD products to detrimental effect. Still, their concerns would be eased somewhat, they say, if patients collaborated with doctors on appropriate dosing, which is another goal of the government initiative.
”I believe that CBD should be available to all seniors as part of their health care, recommended by a provider with knowledge of cannabinoid medicine,” said Dr. Melanie Bone, the director of medical cannabinoid therapies at MorseLife, a senior residence in West Palm Beach, Fla. “It may help with a number of ailments of aging, and has almost no downside. But CBD is not a panacea. The only way to know if it works is to try.”
What does research show about CBD for older patients?
CBD, or cannabidiol, one of the most prominent compounds in the cannabis sativa plant, is nonintoxicating and known for its soothing effects on the central nervous system. Many CBD products are made from hemp, a legal strain of cannabis that is rich in CBD and has only small amounts of the intoxicating compound, THC. The Medicare program restricts the amount of THC that can be in hemp-derived CBD to 3 milligrams per serving.
In recent years, CBD has become increasingly attractive to older patients. Results from studies are mixed to positive. But many of the doses evaluated contained more THC than those allowed by the Medicare guidelines. Most researchers have noted the need for more rigorous gold-standard trials.
Mr. Trump’s assertion that one in five adults use CBD products, many for chronic pain, which was also included in supporting documents for an executive order announcing the program, appears to conflate self-reported surveys and polls that broadly address adult use of medical cannabis or CBD.
But a chief benefit of CBD that some studies do underscore is that many seniors use the products to replace opioids for pain and benzodiazepines for anxiety and insomnia, which can have troubling side effects.
The new Medicare program mandates that the CBD be given to patients only by doctors, who regularly review their medical history and reactions to the products.
How does the program work?
One of the main goals is to learn whether CBD can help older people feel better enough to get off, or avoid starting, prescriptions for pain, nausea, sleep and anxiety. The hope is that CBD could help prevent more expensive medical interventions that those drugs can lead to. Opioids, for example, can prompt dizziness, constipation, overdoses and trips to the emergency department.
Only a small subset of Medicare recipients — those who participate in a type of health care network called an Accountable Care Organization — will initially be eligible for the benefit. So far, just five large groups have been approved to offer CBD. By January, 2027, CBD will be offered to patients in all 74 ACO groups.
The participating organizations have providers across an array of states, including Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Arizona. Currently, only patients affiliated with programs in New York and Florida patients have begun receiving CBD products, according to a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Those doctors must buy the CBD products up front, spending up to $500 per patient a year. They must agree to screen patients and products carefully, and collect real-time data on how the CBD affects patients.
They will not be directly reimbursed for the CBD. In the incentive-based structure, these groups receive a budget from Medicare. Those that come in under budget by improving patient quality of life and reducing costs, now additionally equipped with CBD as a tool, will receive a percentage of those savings.
Are there any obstacles?
Yes.
Late last year, Congress passed a measure that could remove from the U.S. market most CBD products, including those that doctors suggest for patients.
That is because many CBD products contain far more THC and other synthetic, intoxicating compounds than Congress intended in 2018, when it created the legal definition of hemp, to distinguish it from marijuana. Many of those amped-up CBD items, packaged to look like candy, have led to calls to poison centers.
In reaction, Congress placed severe limits on hemp last year that are set to take place in November. Under those restrictions, Cornbread Hemp, a Kentucky-based company with a contract to supply CBD for the new program, will not be able to do so, because its products’ THC content is above the new limits. A patchwork of bills introduced in the Senate and the House are trying to slow or rewrite what amounts to a looming hemp ban.
In his social media post last month, Mr. Trump urged Congress to act.
“Please get it done, and SOON,” he wrote.
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