What two new DCC updates mean for Nevada County farmers
Most of the farms we represent are small craft operations, often family-run, where the owner is the one labeling product and planning the next transfer. Two recent updates from the Department of Cannabis Control land right in that day-to-day work. One sets how closely your label has to match your lab results. The other opens up how you can move immature plants, seeds, and harvested cannabis between premises.
Labeling cannabinoids, terpenoids, total THC, and total CBD
Your label needs to accurately show the amounts of cannabinoids, terpenoids, total THC, and total CBD. What counts as accurate depends on one thing: whether you labeled the product before or after you got the Certificate of Analysis.
If you label or relabel after the COA, the amounts on your label (your label claim) have to match the lab measurement on the COA exactly. No rounding, no percentage difference. The rules live in California Code of Regulations, title 4, sections 15303 and 15307.
If you label before the COA, you get some room. Your label claim can differ from the COA by up to plus or minus 10 percent. Go past that window and the product has to be relabeled to meet the after-COA rules.
Here is how you check where your batch lands.
The formula:
Difference in percent = | (lab measurement − label claim) | ÷ (label claim) × 100
Say you label a batch at 8.2 percent CBD before the COA, and the COA comes back at 6.7 percent CBD.
Find the absolute value of the difference between the COA and the label claim. | 6.7 − 8.2 | = 1.5
Divide that difference by the label claim. 1.5 ÷ 8.2 = 0.1829
Multiply by 100. 0.1829 × 100 = 18.29 percent
At 18.29 percent, you are well outside the plus-or-minus 10 percent window, so that batch has to be relabeled under the after-COA rules.
Here is why a few minutes of checking pays off. If your label claims miss these requirements, DCC may treat the product as misbranded, and misbranding can lead to an embargo or a recall. For a small farm moving a handful of batches a season, product tied up in a relabel or held under embargo is product you cannot afford to have sitting still. A quick check against your COA before anything leaves the farm keeps your harvest moving.
Cultivators can arrange transfers of immature plants, seeds, and harvested cannabis
There is more room now to move cultivation material between licensed premises, as long as it goes through a licensed distributor. Two situations are covered.
If you are a licensed cultivator or a microbusiness authorized for cultivation, you can arrange the transfer of immature plants or seeds from your cultivation premises to a licensed nursery premises, through a licensed distributor. That is useful if you are working to preserve a strain or get clones into a nursery you work with.
If you hold more than one cultivation license, you can arrange the transfer of immature plants, seeds, or harvested cannabis from one of your cultivation premises to another, through a licensed distributor. For growers here who run permits on more than one parcel, that covers moving your own harvest between your own sites.
One detail to watch on that second situation: the licenses have to be held by the same legal entity. Shared ownership between the licenses is not enough on its own. If the entity named on each license is not identical, the transfer does not qualify. These provisions sit in California Code of Regulations, title 4, section 16300.
If you want a second set of eyes on your label claims, or you are planning a transfer and want to confirm it qualifies, that is what we are here for. Book a one-on-one compliance session with us and we will walk through it together. Give us a call at 530-274-7376 to make an appointment.
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