Burned by sagging tobacco sales and worried over sluggish prices for other crops, Balmer has joined a small but increasingly vocal group of farmers in Lancaster County and elsewhere who are looking to boost their fortunes by raising industrial hemp, the nonintoxicating cousin of marijuana. Federal officials argue that allowing hemp farming would create problems in enforcing pot laws. Hemp advocates insist that farmers would find a ready market. Plants and seeds legally imported from China, Canada and elsewhere are already sold in pretzels, sneakers, nutritional supplements and even Frisbee-style disks. They argue that paper products made from hemp are environmentally friendly because they don't kill trees.
Some stores even sell lingerie made from soft, silk-like hemp fibers.
So when Balmer considers the uses of hemp, she can't help but see dollar signs. A lifelong farmer and county representative for the American Farm Bureau, she has grown tobacco for 40 years but says cigarette makers, facing massive settlements for government and private lawsuits, no longer pay what they used to for her crop. This year, we will see 12,000. Most of us are selling tobacco at a loss. We don't consider it prudent to change the status of hemp as a . . . drug.