The Public Desk
Ask for public money. Book it only after it arrives.
Adam Thompson · 570-772-3824
This desk is how the idea works with federal, state, and local government: USDA and state agriculture for the crop and the mill, racing commissions and HISA for the track, and the local racing secretary for the bedding rule. Awards are booked only after an award letter.
The Public Desk is the arm of this plan that sits with the Farm Service Agency (FSA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development, the state secretary of agriculture, and the state legislature. It also sits with the county and the city. Its job is to find money, tax treatment, and job credits that a government has already written into law, and to ask for this mill to be approved. A dollar does not go into plant income until an award letter or a tax approval names this project. It is not a fifth product.
What was just paid
USDA Economic Research Service, farm-income accounts, September 3, 2026. These are payments to the farm sector. They are not payments to a hemp mill.
The Environmental Working Group, using its farm-subsidy database, counts $29,500,000,000 received in 2025 when crop insurance is included. Of that, $16,300,000,000 was ad hoc, $11,000,000,000 was crop insurance, and $2,100,000,000 was Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage. ERS and EWG are not the same ledger. One is direct payments. The other adds insurance. Adding those two totals would count some of the same dollars twice.
Where that money came from
The standing programs are written in the farm bill and paid through the Commodity Credit Corporation. Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) and Price Loss Coverage (PLC) pay when a covered crop’s price or revenue falls below a benchmark. Conservation programs pay a farmer to change a practice. Crop insurance is a subsidized premium, run by the Risk Management Agency, and it does not expire when a farm bill does.
The surge is the other pile. Congress passed a disaster bill, the American Relief Act of 2025, and USDA stood up the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP). FSA set that program at up to $10,000,000,000 for 2024 crop-year losses. The application window was March 19 through August 15, 2025. Corn was paid at $42.91 an acre. The eligible list was wheat, corn, sorghum, barley, oats, cotton, rice, peanuts, soybeans, other oilseeds, dry peas, lentils, and chickpeas. Hemp was not on it. Honey, wool, and mohair were named as ineligible. Fiber hemp was simply absent.
That is the fact this desk starts from. The recent checks were large because they were written for the crops that already have base acres. Fiber hemp does not have that base. A January 12, 2026 rule defines hemp as an eligible non-covered commodity for certain base-acre questions. That is a definition. It is not a check.
Doors that are open
Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG). On September 18, 2026, USDA awarded $26,500,000 across 194 projects. The published caps are $50,000 for a planning grant and $200,000 for working capital. A hemp mill that turns stalk into hurd, bast, and a soil product is the kind of activity the program describes. The September awards that USDA highlighted were beef. This project was not one of them. The next application window is the door, and the cap is the number. It is not $200,000 in the income line until the award letter arrives.
Hemp crop insurance exists. The Risk Management Agency’s hemp handbook, November 2024, covers fiber, grain, and floral biomass under an actual-production-history policy. Whole-Farm Revenue Protection can cover a farm’s revenue, hemp included, when the farm has the tax records the policy requires. This desk buys the policy. It does not invent a premium or an indemnity.
Disaster price, not a sale price. FSA Notice NAP-238, November 19, 2024, sets the 2025 Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance (NAP) price for fiber hemp at $0.14 a pound. The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) utilized price on the rest of this site is $0.20 a pound. They are different numbers. NAP pays on a loss. It does not buy the crop.
Kentucky’s own pool is the tobacco settlement, not a USDA hemp line. In April 2026 the Attorney General reported a Master Settlement payment of $94,400,000. Half of Kentucky’s settlement is designated for agricultural diversification, which is $47,200,000 this year, granted through the Department of Agriculture. Since 1998 the state has received $2,960,000,000. The Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund and the Kentucky Agricultural Finance Corporation are the desks that spend the ag half. The Kentucky Business Investment program can offer income-tax credits and a wage assessment to a manufacturing or agribusiness project. The credit is set project by project. This page does not invent the rate.
The hemp license itself is not a grant. The Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA) takes new processor applications all year, and the application is free. The same office says, in the application instructions, that it has no funds to cover any part of growing hemp, and that a licensee should expect the crop can lose money. The license is the permission. The Public Desk does not pretend it is capital.
Doors that are not a check
Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities was a USDA pool of more than $3,100,000,000 across 141 projects. Two of the published project ceilings were hemp: Florida A&M University, industrial hemp for fiber, about $4,990,000, and Iconoclast Industries, industrial hemp for fiber and grain, about $15,000,000. USDA’s own page has carried a notice since May 20, 2025, that the program is under review. A ceiling is not a balance. None of it is booked here.
Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) has, in open years, offered grants up to $1 million for a renewable system and up to $500,000 for efficiency, and the regulation still allows a guaranteed loan of up to 75 percent of eligible cost, capped at $25 million to one borrower. Confirm that a funding notice is actually open before anyone writes a REAP grant into a budget. A paused notice is not money.
Jobs, taxes, and the city
The mill-floor roster on the plant page is the exhibit: five people. Credits that pay for jobs only pay for jobs that exist. The desk takes that headcount to three governments. None of the figures below are in the income line.
Federal, the deduction. For equipment acquired after January 19, 2025, the additional first-year depreciation deduction is 100 percent. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said so in Notice 2026-11, on January 14, 2026, and the statute makes it permanent. If a HempTrain at the $3,500,000 stated value qualifies, the company may deduct that cost in the year it is placed in service. A FiberTrack 660 is a different asset: the core lists at $226,470 and a bedding-ready module stack is about $862,000, an estimate, and either way the deduction waits on a real invoice. At the 21 percent federal corporate rate, a deduction of the HempTrain stated value is worth up to $735,000 of tax that would otherwise be paid, and only in a year with enough taxable income to use it. A pass-through owner uses that owner’s own rate, which can be higher or lower. A deduction is not a grant. A company with no taxable income gets no cash from it.
Federal, the hiring credit that is not available. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) lapsed for wages paid after December 31, 2025. Congress did not extend it. When it existed, the maximum for most eligible workers was $2,400, which is 40 percent of the first $6,000 of wages if the person worked at least 400 hours. The Department of Labor is still funding states to finish old certifications. That is not a credit on a 2026 hire. The desk asks for the credit to be restored. It does not book $2,400.
Kentucky, the first new mill. The individual income tax rate in 2026 is 3.5 percent. The Kentucky Business Investment (KBI) program, fact sheet July 2026, can run up to 10 years, or 15 in an enhanced county. Two tools sit inside it, and both require a vote of the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority. One is a tax credit of up to 100 percent of the income tax or the limited-liability entity tax that the project itself generates. The other is a wage assessment of up to 60 percent of the state income-tax rate, which is 2.1 percent of eligible wages, plus a local piece of up to 20 percent of that same rate, which is 0.7 percent of wages. The employee receives a credit, so the assessment is not a pay cut. Because the state rate is 3.5 percent, the wage piece is thin. The valuable piece is the credit against the project’s own state tax, and it is worth nothing until the project has a state tax to offset.
Kentucky, the sales tax on the building. The Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA) refunds sales and use tax on eligible building materials and on eligible equipment for an agribusiness. The construction minimum is $500,000. The state caps the program at $20,000,000 a year for materials and fixtures, and $5,000,000 a year for the equipment category. Those caps are for every project in Kentucky, not a reservation for this mill. Approval is separate from KBI.
Kentucky, the city and the county. A local occupational license fee is the city’s half of the wage assessment. The city has to vote to forgo it. Separately, an industrial revenue bond lets the city or the county hold title for a term and charge a payment in lieu of property tax. The term is whatever that fiscal court agrees to. This page does not invent a term or a percentage. A tax-increment district in Kentucky starts at $10 million of investment for a property-tax district. One building, at the fit-out already priced on the plant page, can fall under that floor. A district the statute will not open is not this project.
South Dakota, the mill that is already running. The state has no individual income tax and no corporate income tax, so there is no state wage assessment to negotiate. The local tool is the property-tax discretionary formula, South Dakota Codified Law (SDCL) 10-6-137. A county, or a city if the county has not acted, may reduce the taxable value of a new nonresidential structure for up to 5 years, at whatever percentages it writes into the resolution. The Department of Revenue’s July 2026 sheet uses 20, 40, 60, 80, then 100 percent of value as an example, meaning year one is taxed on 20 percent of the structure. If the county has already adopted a formula, it applies without an application. It cannot be stacked onto a tax-increment district created after July 1, 2026. The desk asks the Clay County director of equalization which formula, if any, is on the books in Wakonda. It does not assume the example.
Every other mill state gets the same three meetings, and only the number that state has published. New York has the Excelsior Jobs Program. Pennsylvania has Keystone Opportunity Zones and a job-creation credit. Ohio has a Job Creation Tax Credit. Florida has no personal income tax and a Qualified Target Industry refund. Texas has no personal income tax, a franchise tax, and a local abatement under the jobs and energy statute that replaced Chapter 313. Oklahoma has a Quality Jobs rebate of a portion of new payroll. The rate in each of those is set by that state’s approval. Until the approval is in the file, the cell on this page stays blank.
How the desk works
One person owns this, under the general manager. The work is a calendar, not a slogan.
- File the processor license in the state where the mill sits. In Kentucky that file is already free and open all year.
- Open a file at the county Farm Service Agency office and the USDA Rural Development office in that state. Ask, in writing, which of VAPG, NAP, and the hemp insurance policy the mill and its growers can use this season.
- Meet the state secretary of agriculture with the stall letter and the plant cost in hand. In Kentucky, ask the Agricultural Development Board for a diversification grant from the tobacco-settlement half, and ask the finance corporation about a processing loan. KDA has said it will not fund the crop.
- Meet the state representative and the state senator for the mill’s district, and the member of Congress, with one request: the next assistance list should name fiber hemp, or a processing credit for a plant that sells hurd, bast, and compost. The ECAP list is the model of how a crop gets left off. The repair is a statute, not a speech.
- Take the roster to the state economic-development cabinet. In Kentucky that meeting is the Finance Authority, and the two asks are the Business Investment agreement and the Enterprise Initiative refund. Book either one only after the approval.
- Take the same roster to the county and the city. Ask the city to forgo the local piece of a wage assessment, and ask the fiscal court for a property-tax agreement. In South Dakota, ask whether a discretionary formula is already adopted before anyone drafts a new one.
The same desk repeats in every mill state. The federal doors are the same. The state pool is not. Kentucky has a published settlement number. A state that does not publish one is not given a made-up pool on this page.