GROWN IN THE USA?

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson calls hemp a good fiber, but "institutional constraints" pose "overwhelming" obstacles to studying it.

USDA's Jeffrey Gain, chairman of the board of the Alternative Agriculture Research and Commercialization Corp., has said, "Anybody who comes to the conclusion that hemp is not viable is probably not fully aware..."

The state of Wisconsin angered regional drug warriors last spring by organizing a conference on the commercial cultivation of hemp. Erwin Sholts of the state's Department of Agriculture figured hemp acreage to be worth "in the neighborhood of a couple hundred dollars more than corn." And its root system is "good for fragile soils," he said.

Hemp roots, nine to fourteen inches long, condition the soil and provide the plant good water access. It is highly pest resistant and the crop requires minimal treatment with farm chemicals. Advocates of hemp commerce look to the day when hemp grown in the U.S. can support value added economies in rural areas, where the commodity will be grown, processed, and sold in the same community, providing jobs and supporting the local tax base. They refer to this concept as "bioregionalism." It should sound familiar to patrons of farmers markets and organics enthusiasts.

Bioregionalism—conveniently if coincidentally—short-circuits one of the primary federal grounds for interference with the hemp trade, namely the issue of interstate commerce. Though federal law regulates the cannabis plant as a schedule one narcotic (thus setting up the DEA as the gatekeeper for growers permits), other federal statutes only come into play when the product is moved between states. If it always stays in the state, there's no issue.

Bioregionalism is also plain sound economics. It's what makes access to a domestic supply a crucial developmental issue for International Paper.

Interestingly, this movement toward a more traditional agriculture, as hemp proponents tend to position themselves, makes skillful use of modern media, principally the World Wide Web. Almost all of the major hemp organizations have Internet addresses, and product labels and political brochures will direct you to them. The effect makes for a coherent web presence. The success of this strategy at educating the public about the potential benefits of hemp agriculture may well determine whether the political climate can support changes in the law to make it possible.

Nearly 4,000 acres of industrial hemp is grown in Holland and Germany, and world markets crave more.

Every season brings its crop of hemp conferences, internationally and within North America. Past conferences have provided opportunity for growers and manufacturers to meet each other, and for people in similar businesses to troubleshoot together, just as happens at producer and manufacturer conventions for any other commodity. As the hemp industry matures, these gatherings assume a changing significance. A hemp symposium that took place in February in Vancouver, partially bankrolled and publicly supported by the Bank of Montreal, began the process of hooking up hemp entrepreneurs with sources of capital. As hemp commerce becomes more recognizably part of the mainstream economy, it will be easier to push for the political reforms necessary for people to grow it.

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