Nevada agriculture leaders push food-safety reorganization, flag enforcement gap on illicit hemp

Director Goicoechea, speaking to the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Natural Resources, outlined several near-term policy changes and administrative steps the department is pursuing to strengthen food safety and support local producers. She said the agency plans to consolidate dairy safety, cottage food oversight and meat-and-poultry inspection beneath a proposed Division of Food Safety to streamline inspections and administration.

"We are going to propose that we would bring our dairy, our food safety, which includes cosmetics, and cottage food, and also our meat and poultry inspection program all under one silo," Director Goicoechea said. She told members the department is preparing regulatory material now and expects to submit rulemaking (NAC 446) with the intention of the new structure being effective well before it goes into practice.

On cottage food specifically, Goicoechea said the department is engaged in the regulatory process and intends to have an R number and formal rules in place; the goal is to have permanent regulations in effect rather than temporary provisions. The department also described an $800,000 Home Feeds Nevada appropriation yet to be spent and a staff recommendation to allow community partners in rural counties—not only Feeding America food banks—to receive products locally to reduce transport costs. "We're not trying to take it from our food banks. We're just trying to be more efficient," she said.

The director told the committee the department has sought and received USDA sign-off on state meat- and poultry-inspection regulations, and state inspectors are training with USDA staff. "They had to sign off on it," she said, describing an arrangement that allows more in-state processing and labeling without USDA facilities.

Members pressed the director about an enforcement problem involving illicit hemp products sold as highly concentrated cannabinoids. "Some of these products are 10, 20 times more potent than legal cannabis," Goicoechea said, noting youth access and ambulance calls in some areas. She explained a regulatory gap created when staff were transferred from the Division of Public and Behavioral Health: the enforcement authority did not move with the personnel, leaving uncertainty about which agency has pull-and-seize authority. The department said it may pursue joint BDRs with the Cannabis Compliance Board and the Attorney General's office to clarify authority and enable testing capacity (light labs) to rapidly measure THC levels on-site.

Why it matters: the proposals would reorganize state food-safety functions, affect fee and inspection structures, and change distribution rules for a state program meant to buy local product for food banks. The hemp enforcement gap combines public-safety and jurisdictional questions that the agency said will require statutory fixes if authority cannot be resolved administratively.

Next steps: the department said it will prepare draft language for a BDR for the Home Feeds Nevada distribution change, continue training with USDA on meat inspection, and work with the Attorney General and the Cannabis Compliance Board on options to authorize targeted enforcement of illicit hemp products.