Billion Dollar Crop

Directed by Barbara Ann Chobocky
Produced with Michael Cordell and Jeffrey Bruer

This surprising video explains the environmental interest in the non-drug variety of hemp as a versatile industrial fiber, and documents the history of its prohibition.
Backed by years of worldwide research, BILLION DOLLAR CROP exposes the political and industrial manipulations, which outlawed one of the most valued plants in history. Hemp once provided the paper on which US banknotes were printed, the cloth for the original Levi jeans, as well as the sails and rigging of ships. During World War II it was of such strategic importance that the US Government encouraged farmers to convert to hemp cultivation.

BILLION DOLLAR CROP shows how the recently developed, non-drug variety of hemp is being researched and cultivated internationally because of the plant's versatile qualities and environmental friendliness. This program takes the audience on a world tour from Australia to the United Kingdom, and from The Netherlands to France and the US. It illustrates how hemp is being cultivated as an industrial fiber for use as an alternative to wood for paper production, to cotton for clothes, and to plywood for construction. We all benefit, especially our forests and topsoil.