AMBER WAVES OF HEMP? WHY NOT?

The Lancaster County countryside is a contrast of old-farm charm and
modern-day despair.

And it's about to become the home turf for a heated debate on an illegal
crop that some say could be the salvation of struggling farmers.

Tucked among the meadows of grazing cows, the fields of cornstalks reaching
for the skies, are rows and rows of tobacco plants - a crop that robs the
soil of its nutrients, robs people of their lives and robs farmers of their
livelihoods.

Mary Jane Balmer has been a farmer most of her 60 years. In the heyday of
tobacco farming, Balmer's crop would bring in $2,000 an acre. Last year,
she made nothing.

Now she's looking at hemp as a possible crop.

"We're not old hippies looking to smoke some dope," she said. "We're
farmers looking to save our farms."

Several Lancaster County farmers are looking at hemp as an alternative to
tobacco. Why not let them? It's time for Pennsylvania to forget the old
stigmas attached to hemp, sow the seeds of hope for farmers, and at least
allow a hemp pilot program.

Some farmers, like Balmer, plan on traveling to Canada this summer to see
hemp farms in action.

For those who worry that such farms are dope fields in disguise, you should
realize that you won't get very high on industrial hemp. It's the leaves
that make you mellow; the stalks produce thousands of products like fabric,
grains, methanol (for those who want to be a little less reliant on fossil
fuels), paper and car parts.

Hemp plants are planted close together so there are fewer leaves and more
stalks. What leaves there are help keep the soil moist and add nutrients
when plowed under during harvest.

For more than 200 years, Pennsylvania was home to acres and acres of hemp,
but in the 1930s, a government ban put the kibosh on the industry.

Some say Uncle Sam fell to the pressures from those in the timber, paper
and plastics industries who saw hemp as a tough competitor. Many lawmakers
still support the ban, saying it'll be too easy for hemp farmers to grow a
little dope.

But any farmer looking to hide some marijuana can already do that in a
field of corn. And if legal hemp fulfills its potential as a moneymaker,
farmers wouldn't have to go illegal to make a buck. We're so hung up on the
stigmas attached to hemp that we've turned a blind eye to its benefits.

Maybe there is some good that can come out of all that tobacco we plant in
Lancaster County. Maybe the stalks can be spun into fine fabric. Perhaps
the leaves can be ground into oils. We don't know because we're not
researching those possibilities.

To get some serious research going, we'd first need lawmakers to open the
purse strings, and that's never a quick and easy task. Then we'd have to
spend more years actually doing the research; years farmers just don't
have. They need to make money now.

The research on hemp, on the other hand, already has been done. We know how
to plant it and how to use it.

Balmer would certainly be willing to try out the crop. "I'm not sure this
is the salvation crop," she said. "I'm just looking for anything to bring
in the dollars and cents so we can keep our farms."

And I, for one, would much rather drive through the Lancaster County
countryside and see field after field of a plant like hemp that is
beneficial to society, rather than field after field of tobacco leaves with
their cancerous reputation.

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Lauren Rooney lives and writes in Harrisburg. Her e-mail address is
rooney@PAnetwork.com