HFGA US Hemp Textile Standard

This standard specifies the quality, processing, chemical, and traceability requirements for industrial hemp bast fiber grown in the United States and supplied as a textile feedstock. It applies from the standing crop through to baled, decorticated, and degummed fiber presented for spinning, blending, or nonwoven conversion.

• Applies to: field-retted and controlled-retted hemp straw, decorticated line fiber, tow, cottonized and degummed fiber intended for textile use.
• Does not apply to: hurd/shiv sold into construction or animal bedding (see the forthcoming HFGA Hemp Construction Standards), hemp grain and grain products, or finished yarn, fabric, and garments.
• Conformity is assessed per lot. A supplier may hold conforming and non-conforming lots concurrently; the conformity claim attaches to the lot ID, never to the company.
• Conformity may be declared directly against a lot, or through a Product Conformance Profile that maps a named commercial product to a grade of this standard and is verified on a recurring schedule. Profiles are governed by HFGA-PCP-00 and verified under HFGA-VER-01.

The following documents are indispensable for the application of this standard. For dated references, only the cited edition applies; for undated references, the latest edition applies.

• 7 CFR Part 990 — USDA Domestic Hemp Production Program.
• ASTM D1447 — Standard Test Method for Length and Length Uniformity of Fibers.
• ASTM D2495 — Standard Test Method for Moisture in Fiber (oven-dry).
• ASTM D3822 — Standard Test Method for Tensile Properties of Single Textile Fibers.
• ISO 2370 — Textiles: determination of fineness of flax fibres, airflow method.
• ISO/IEC 17025 — General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.
• AOAC 2007.01 — Pesticide residues in foods by acetonitrile extraction (QuEChERS).
• HFGA-TM-01 — Gravimetric determination of residual shive and foreign matter (HFGA test method, published alongside this standard).
• HFGA-VER-01 — HFGA Verification Scheme Rules: verification levels, evidence schedule, sampling frequency, and non-conformance handling.
• HFGA-PCP-00 — HFGA Product Conformance Profile: the template and registration rules for mapping a named product to this standard.

Fiber is eligible for classification under this standard only where the standing crop met all of the following at harvest.

1. 1.Grown under a USDA-approved State or Tribal hemp production plan, or a USDA hemp producer licence issued under 7 CFR Part 990. The licence number is recorded against every lot.
2. 2.Total delta-9 THC not exceeding 0.3 percent on a dry-weight basis, determined by a DEA-registered laboratory on a sample drawn within 30 days before harvest.
3. 3.Planted with certified seed of a variety on the HFGA certified-variety register, or an AOSCA-certified equivalent, with the seed lot number retained.
4. 4.No crop-protection product applied that lacks an EPA label for hemp, for the 12 months preceding harvest (see Clause 7).
5. 5.Straw baled at 15 percent moisture or below and stored under cover, off the ground, until decortication.

Fiber is classified into one of three grades by its measured properties. The grades are not a quality ranking: each corresponds to a different spinning system and end product — TX-A to wet-spun long-line yarns, TX-B to cotton-system spinning, TX-C to nonwovens. A lot is classified to the grade whose full parameter window its measurements fall within; where a measurement falls outside one grade's window, the lot is classified at the grade it does meet.

Fiber failing every TX-C parameter is not classified under this standard and shall not carry the conformity claim in Clause 10. It may still be sold as ungraded hemp fiber.

Retting method determines most of the variance in the Clause 5 parameters and shall be declared on the lot record.

• Permitted methods: field (dew) retting, controlled tank or water retting with effluent capture, enzymatic retting, and steam explosion.
• Not permitted: retting with chlorinated agents, or any process discharging untreated retting effluent to surface water.
• Retting degree shall be recorded — under-retted, optimally retted, or over-retted — assessed against the HFGA visual reference set, and reported with the lot.
• Decortication and refining shall not raise fiber temperature above 120°C at any stage, to preserve tenacity.
• Bleaching, where applied, shall use peroxide or ozone chemistry only. Chlorine bleaching disqualifies the lot (Clause 7).

The following limits apply to fiber as delivered. Testing frequency is set in Clause 9.

Every conforming lot carries an unbroken record from field to bale. This is the clause a brand's due-diligence team will audit.

1. 1.Lot ID format: HFGA-US-<state>-<year>-<producer ID>-<lot sequence>. The ID is physically tagged on every bale in the lot.
2. 2.Field record: producer licence number, parcel identifier, variety and seed lot, planting and harvest dates, pre-harvest cannabinoid test report.
3. 3.Process record: retting method and degree, decortication line and date, any refining or bleaching step with chemistry used.
4. 4.Transfer record: a chain-of-custody document signed at every change of ownership, referencing the lot ID and the mass transferred.
5. 5.Mass balance: input straw mass to output fiber mass shall reconcile within ±3 percent after accounting for declared hurd and dust fractions.
6. 6.Retention: all records retained for three years from the date of final sale and made available to HFGA on request.

Testing shall be performed by a laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 for the method in question. Sampling follows ISO 1130, drawing from a minimum of 10 percent of bales in the lot with a minimum of three bales.

The frequencies above are the minimum for a conformity claim. Where a declarant operates under a Product Conformance Profile, the verification level selected in that profile sets the depth of independent checking — from self-declaration through document verification and independent testing to periodic surveillance — together with the evidence schedule and the sampling switching rules. Those are defined in HFGA-VER-01, not here, so that the scheme can evolve without reopening this standard.

Where a buyer's incoming inspection disputes a declared grade, a referee test at a mutually agreed accredited laboratory is decisive, with cost borne by the party whose result is overturned. This is a dispute mechanism, not a fee for conformity — see Clause 10.

There are two permitted claim forms. Both resolve to a lot — that is what stops a conformity claim becoming a permanent company badge.

• Every claim names the standard code, the version, and the grade. A claim that omits the version is not a conforming claim — thresholds change between versions.
• A product claim shall cite a Lot Verification Record and its date. A registered profile on its own is not a conformity claim; it is a declaration of what the product is meant to meet.
• The claim shall not be made at company, facility, or brand level. A named product is not a company: "Imperium Fiber is registered to …" is permitted, "Heartland Industries is HFGA certified" is not.
• Downstream products may reference conformity of their hemp content, stating the hemp percentage by mass. Products below 30 percent conforming hemp shall state the percentage adjacent to the claim.
• HFGA may withdraw a claim licence, suspend a registered profile, or both, where a claim is made without a supporting record. Withdrawals and suspensions are published.

HFGA-TX-US-01 and HFGA-TX-EU-01 share one grade architecture so that a lot graded on one side of the Atlantic is legible on the other. The technical thresholds are intentionally identical; the standards differ in feedstock law, test-method family, and chemical regulation.

• Maintained by the HFGA Standards Technical Committee, drawn from growers, processors, mills, brands, and accredited laboratories.
• Draft standards are issued for a 60-day public comment period before ratification. Every comment receives a written disposition.
• Published standards are reviewed on a three-year cycle, or sooner where a change in federal law or test-method availability requires it.
• Version history and comment dispositions are published on this page as the standard advances.
• Product Conformance Profiles are registered, suspended, and withdrawn by the Committee under HFGA-PCP-00. The register and every status change are public.
• Impartiality: HFGA does not favour any declarant. Where a Committee member, officer, or affiliate of the association has a commercial interest in a profile under consideration, that interest is disclosed on the register and the interested party takes no part in the registration or verification decision. The same published criteria and the same form apply to every declarant.
• Comments to standards@hfga.io.