I want to be like George Washington.

George Washington was a land surveyor, and he served in the Army.  There's one more way in which I want to be like him, and no, I do not want to be president.  I want to grow hemp.  Hemp is an awesome crop, and it's actually illegal for US farmers to grow it.  That really needs to change.  Yes, there are ways for people to get licensed to grow medicinal marijuana in California, but textile grade hemp is not legally farmed anywhere in the US.  I think this is dead wrong.

The demand for textile grade hemp is so high that we import tons of it every year.  From that, everything from building materials to clothing is made.  Everyone knows that hemp is one of the strongest and most versatile fibers there is, and that it is useful for pretty much everything.  What some people don't know is that the plants are extremely sustainable to grow, especially organically, and that not only could we help the environment by encouraging US farmers to grow organic hemp, but we could also help our economy.  Right now, hemp is expensive because it's imported, but if we grew it here, it would be cheap, like cotton is.  The difference is that hemp is useful for a lot more things than cotton, and is far more sustainable to grow.  A move toward reliance on hemp would make things more affordable, keep more dollars in the US, and help farmers.  I don't see a single downside.

I want to grow hemp because I live in the perfect place for it.  The terrain and climate are excellent for hemp plants to thrive, and since this is a big cotton producing area, there is already a market in place for fiber crops.  I could easily sell any hemp that I produced.  It would quite possibly be our best crop.  We've looked into a lot as far as what directions we want to go when we get our farm when Thak gets home from Afghanistan, and really, hemp is far and away our best option for a cash crop, but I'm pretty sure the result wouldn't be pretty about the time we planted 15 acres of textile grade hemp in the middle of Bulloch County.  We'd probably have police helicopters landing on our lawn before we knew what hit us.  This should not be.  My hypothetical field of hemp should be just as accepted as the field of cotton down the road.  The US needs to get over its hangups about hemp production.  It's good for the country if American farmers produce hemp.

How can we get our government to legalize textile grade hemp production?  I'm not even talking about medical or recreational marijuana  use this time (although I think that stuff should be legal, too).  I'm talking purely about the fiber crop I believe I could make a good living growing.  We need this thing to be legal, preferably by 2014.