American Hemp Farmer

Funding for this film provided in part by Columbus Jewish Foundation, Healthy Oilseeds from Carrington North Dakota, and Dr.

Bronner's Magic Soap.

(playful music) - I fled Babylon 20 years ago.

I guess you could say I saw the writing on the wall.

Growing up as I did in suburbia when Madonna was like a virgin.

As a result, I've been sequestered since 1999.

(upbeat music) It worked great for more than a Homeschool the kids, snuggle the sweetheart, grow some food.

I was sane again.

No one could find me.

(upbeat music) Dang.

Sh**t just got real.

This is the first time we've had to plant hemp as though our family survival depended on it.

(upbeat music) This is a story of families just like yours on a quest for personal food sec even as they create markets for their healthy harvests.

These are "American Hemp Farmers.

(soft upbeat music) (soft upbeat music) - Let's just talk about the food You starve in a day in suburbia if the supermarket's close.

That's not a society that's built on any kind of real (soft upbeat music) The number one reason I cultivate the hemp plant is for food security.

Actually, call it superfood sec When we look out on the world, my family and I get this message Focus on home, food and entertaining goats.

All our goats are named after singers whose voices sound goat like Taylor Swift.

Bye.

Come here, Bjork.

(tongue clicks) All mammals have receptors to receive the wellness components in hemp flowers called cannabinoids.

Plus, before a yoga session, the goats love the 30% protein in hemp seed.

One time, I tested a koi pond with hemp seed and a waterproof camera.

And yes, even fish love hemp.

We've secretly supplemented our already organic goat grain with regionally grown hemp seeds and they seem to like it.

I wrote books, milked goats, and jumped on the trampoline a lot.

So, here I'm trying to see if I can really do it, drive on vegetable oil instead of petroleum, grow as much of our food as we c raise food between the goats and the chickens.

And then, power the ranch by solar.

I'm so not into dying and I so often put myself in a position where it could hap Wasn't really good at it, but go (Doug screaming) (Doug screaming) We were just up on the roof.

Ah.

In my ear.

Drip, drip, drip.

Efficient use of water in the desert, (grunts) except when your son's got the hose.

(grunts) (soft upbeat music) you start to almost die with less frequency after the first year or two.

Then, the fire came.

(subdued music) - [Reporter] A growing wildfire in New Mexico's Gila National Forest is now confirmed to be the largest in state history.

The fire began as two separate blazes before combining into one big one.

It has now burned more than 265 square miles.

Some 1,200 firefighters from around the state are battling the fire, but it is not yet contained.

- That spring, the massive inferno approached my slice of paradise, the Funky Butte Ranch, closer every day.

The air was getting too smoky to breathe.

We were about two days from joining the world's 20 million climate refugees.

And then, there was the day the bear came.

(robust music) He was a refugee from the blaze.

One June morning at dawn, my goats, my friends, meditation partners, and source of yogurt and ice cream were killed, right in front of my family's eyes.

That day, as my sweetheart and I tended to the sole survivor, baby Taylor Swift, we realized that suddenly, survival and food security were no longer optional.

We knew hemp was a super food.

Look at the color on this hemp seed oil.

To life.

Hmm.

And that meant survival.

I'd written books about it, even testified before the United Nations about it.

We also knew that every acre of hemp sequesters tons of carbon, fighting millennial climate change events like our fire, thanks to hemp's long taproots.

After being sequestered for a couple decades before anyone told us to, we knew we had to plant hemp and other food crops to survive, and we're all just beginners.

We're looking for more than 200 million acres cultivated to keep humanity alive for seven more generations.

We're gonna take you through a full season.

(upbeat music) (goat bleats) (tense music) Just planting hemp in America.

No big deal.

It's prohibition that was the anomaly.

(tense music) Just as I was prepping our own New Mexico soil for planting, I got a call from my friends, Colin and Erin Nohl, in Vermont, and Erin's dad, Carrie.

Colin and Erin are newlyweds, or as I think of them, newly weeds.

On land, their family has farmed for three generations.

They have the same mission as I do this season.

Family food security and small batch product development.

(robust music) You and your wife, Erin, are at that stage in life where you can, you can jam all the time and not feel it, but, or maybe you do feel it.

(both laughing) are you already making a huge living from it?

Are you still putting more in?

- No, everything's going back into the company.

We're growing as organically as possible and it takes time.

It's a labor of love and hopefully we're able to sustain ourselves off it as time goes on.

But right now, we still work side gigs and do everything we have to make ends meet and keep growing this brand.

- I'm so glad to see that you're in it for the long haul.

I think that's another important piece of advice to people is you've gotta stick in with this and not expecting it's gonna be a year one, get rich quick - Right.

- kind of thing.

(upbeat music) Colin and Erin had launched an organic farm-to-table hemp company and wanted to cultivate organic hemp together with me on a family field 2,400 miles aw from the Funky Butte Ranch outside of Montpelier, Vermont.

After all, I'd been planting hem for half a decade by this point.

I knew Colin and Erin well.

We'd played plenty together.

Even drank gallons of their home-tapped maple syrup.

Now, we'd be working together, dividing the harvest and making it into our respective products.

The idea for their enterprise called Vermont Farmacy was that top-shelf craft hemp is a winner over mass market.

Just as Vermont beer makers have profitably demonstrated the market value of high quality beer.

They were bootstrapping it and so was I.

(upbeat music) Do you still get excited- - No, we're just getting started - We're just getting started.

- Yeah.

- We've got a long way to go.

- Mm-hmm.

- In conjunction with you, Doug, have this beautiful seed and fiber crop behind us.

We're hoping to get a share pressed into oil.

And then we create a CBD flower-infused hemp oil.

- Yeah, we're getting great feedback anywhere from people using it for anti-inflammatory issues to promoting wellness, - Well, best of luck with it.

I look forward to working with you and seeing this industry - Thank you.

- be born and grow.

It's amazing to be doing it for reasons that have to do with wellness and helping people, and then seeing, oh my gosh, the business end might work out too.

So, stay tuned for that.

None of us are making bank yet.

But we're getting there.

(Erin laughing) - Hope to.

- Feels good to help people.

That's for sure.

(soft upbeat music) (instrumental music) (gentle music) Hmm.

Organic alfalfa and goat po Ah, breakfast to champions.

The real heroes of this story are the microbes, the beneficial little folk in th that we can't see as individuals especially important is the fungal life.

Just another plant in the garden as it's always been for thousands of years.

This hemp plant in our garden this year is loving being shaded by beans, tomatoes, peppers, and watermelon friends.

The interspecies love, help them all weather an early season hailstorm.

(hail falling) Hail.

You can do every step of the process in a way that is part of the solution for humanity.

Building soil, sequestering carbon, for sure.

You can do carbon neutral harvesting.

We did that.

It sounds good, but what it really means is we just used our arms, which is great.

(Colin chuckles) Instead of a combine.

- We believe we've been carrying into the entire process, we're actually investing in new equipment, so we're going all electric and recharging with the sun.

taking that step and getting away from fossil fuels when it comes to the weed whacker.

It's a lot of work and you're putting in the effort, but you can be successful.

And we look at some of the other industries that have been very successful in Vermont and that's making maple syrup.

It's very small batch.

We make about 300 gallons a year.

Or you look at the craft beer scene and people are making very small amounts of very high quality beer.

- And making a living from it.

- And making a living from it.

- And I was asking him, what's the value of craft brewing in Vermont?

- Mm-hmm.

- Would you think tens of millions?

- Yes, definitely.

- Absolutely.

Yep.

And I think that's one thing that's really important for the consumer is to know your farmer.

(upbeat music) (goat bleats) - Hemp is just another plant in the garden.

They all make each other taste better.

And I love, as each wild flower comes on, this is one of my favorites.

the four o'clock.

I realize I work for plants, fungi, and other unnamed kingdoms that are invisible to us, but are as important to the quality of your final hemp and other crops as sunlight and as water.

Soil is step one.

And we spend a lot of time loving the soil here.

And then, a few months later, watching the payoff.

I'm sticking my fingers into this composting soil two days after planting and three days after watering.

Yep.

Still moist.

The payoff of soil building.

Hmm.

For me, it's sanity, it's happiness.

It's a sign that humanity has a chance.

(dramatic music) I think Colin's right.

Knowing and supporting your local regenerative farmers of all crops is win-win for everyone.

What does regenerative mean?

In simplest terms, it means putting back at least as much nutrition into the soil as this year's crops used and as humans have always done, or you and I wouldn't be here.

Before supermarkets, regenerative polyculture was conventional.

When we seek out regenerative products at food co-ops and farmer's markets, or better yet, when we grow superfoods ourselve our family meals will be healthi Plus, regenerative farming sequesters carbon in the soil, which matters for folks who care whether their great grandkids have a habitable planet.

For my family's food, the farmers are my wife, my sons, and me.

I said yes to Colin and Erin before I totally realized what I was committing to.

But for the moment, I had my own garden to tend.

It was spring.

It was planting time.

The season's hemp permit had arrived and the pollinators and hummingbirds were already dive bombing me in the cool garden soil.

I get excited about a spring day farming the way some people do about going to a ball game or a play.

Talk about literal sweat equity in one's own work.

(subdued music) I am really proud of us Fines' In our frist home crop here on the Funky Butte Ranch last year, we crossbred two varieties of hemp that we liked.

(soft upbeat music) Our own superfood, our own security, our own survival.

We used to bankroll the Canadian prairie economy with our family hemp budget.

Now, it's free.

I'm also a customer.

(munches) Local mulberry, homegrown hemp seeds in ice cream for my son's birthday.

This is the first time we've had to plant hemp as though our family's survival depended on it, 'cause it does.

(instrumental music) So, hopefully, everything I'm doing now will allow my hemp seed to come up strong and healthy in a month.

Luckily, I've had some great teachers for every part of the hemp season, from planting to watering to harvest.

(upbeat music) (goat bleats) (tense music) In fact, my hemp mentor, Edgar, is probably the world's longest cultivating hemp farmer.

He first planted hemp in Alabama in 1957, right as prohibition was really kicking in.

Here's one of the first things Edgar told me when he started teaching me about hemp a decade ago, even before he got Oregon's hemp permit number one.

- [Edgar] When I was seven years old, my granddaddy in Alabama taught me that hemp made stronger baling twine than the plastic crap that was coming online back then.

Joseph Pape was his name and he was from the Choctaw tribe of Alabama.

See the pixel right there?

You can see underneath that leaf that they're trying to cross over like a female.

- [Doug] Oh, yeah.

- [Edgar] I would say 85 to 90%, this will be a female.

- [Doug] Hemp has a learning curve and Edgar and his wife, Margaret, have been my hemp professors for a ten years already.

They've got the chops and the creds.

But some things you just gotta learn yourself.

Put in your 10,000 hours or whatever it is.

Or better yet, plant a hemp field personally.

(hemp seed clinking) There we go.

(hemp seed clinking) It's planting time in Oregon, because, well, it seems like humanity needs it.

- Yeah.

Great.

- Beautiful day, beautiful day.

Nice day.

Beautiful.

(upbeat music) - All right.

Talk about a brain trust here.

We got my mentor, EJ.

We got Randy who can fix and already has fixed everything you need to on a tractor.

You got Chris who just doesn't quit.

And just in case we need some wild Turkey, of course we got Mike.

He's also our bodyguard.

Planting hemp seed is something that humanity has done for 12,000 years.

And then, here we are in Oregon.

And you have been planting hemp since a kid in Alabama in the '50s.

Did you think you'd see this moment?

How does it feel?

- Wow.

I'll really be honest with you.

I don't think I'd ever see this in my lifetime.

- In the bottom line, we're talking about feeding our families and making a living from it too.

21st century kind of living, fair trade kind of living, a righteous kind of living thing - You want to get over this hump - Yeah.

- It'll be fine.

(group chattering) (lid clinks) - Welcome to the new Silicon Valley.

Can you see?

(engine whirring) Come on (faintly speaks) (upbeat music) Calibrating the seed drill always takes longer than you think.

(engine whirring) - Just opens it up.

It's a drop.

- So, put it down like a... (Chris faintly speaking) - You see, they used to use oxen (engine whirring) Might be easier.

- It would've been.

- Oh, yeah, we'd have been done - Yeah.

(group laughing) - Yeah, we'd be done.

(Edgar whistles) (upbeat music) (engine whirring) Nothing, nothing!

This is our mission here.

We turn a few thousand of these into tens of millions of them.

Every one of 'em packed with 34% protein, omega balance, magnesium, selenium.

So, it's a dietary revolution while healing the soil and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.

- Yeah.

- Now, we just gotta get this seed drill calibrated.. (group laughing) - All right, break.

- Yeah.

(companion laughing) (group chattering) (Randy faintly speaking) - So, as I've been saying, oxen, I'm just asking.

We're stopping every pass - to fix a problem - that came 20th century recently and more recently.

(Doug drowns out companion) - Boys.

- All I'm saying.

It's time to plant seeds in Vermont (upbeat music) So, Gary, 1,950 acres being planted in Vermont this year of hemp.

It seems incredible how successful (Gary drowns out Doug) - It is.

It's taken off really well.

- And we're three of them.

- We are three.

- Let's bring this industry back, shall we?

- Very good.

Let's go.

(seed clinks) - [Doug] Every time Edgar and the Oregon crew taught me an easy or a hard lesson of large scale hemp planting out west, I thought of my Vermont friends, Colin and Erin, who would soon be expecting the same kind of lesson from me.

I would have to transform quickly from student to professor myself if we could ever actually get these seed planted in Oregon.

(metal thuds) - Gotta make sure that the seeds flow into every opening that we have in the seed drill to ensure the right planting spacing and the right planting depth.

(engine whirring) These seeds are a cultivar that I've helped develop called Samurai and each one of them is packed with the potential for high protein omega balanced super food nutrition on the seed side.

Monster Samurai built fiber for things like next generation home building, super capacitors and next generation batteries and traditional uses like, TMI alert, but my underwear today is made out of hemp here.

It's purple.

And then, the flower, of course, people are into cannabinoids.

- CBD, CBC, CBN, CBG, in an entourage effect with terpenes and bioflavonoids.

This is a strong part of humanity's recovery mission, the hemp plant.

Finally.

Look at those beautiful carbon sequestering roots.

It requires a little bit more lift with your legs.

because of hemp's long taproots that aerate the soil.

Look at that.

One season crop.

Very rare for an annual.

This hempcrete ball, again, my sons and I built this in a few minutes, years ago.

I carry it all over the world.

It's so strong.

(dramatic music) The fiber, well, this is why we called her Samurai.

This is gonna be in clothes that I wear.

This is gonna be in next generation super capacitors.

I'm talking about the fiber embedded in this plant.

In breathable healthy homes of the future, the fiber can be a building component.

(dramatic music) It looks like we're starting with the core, the literal roots of Hawaiian culture here, huh, Bobby?

- Yep, that's it.

That's the ele ele makoko variety, a native Hawaiian variety.

- Of kalo.

- Of kalo.

Yes.

(robust music) Hemp is the best kept secret I feel for these islands.

- Okay, here's the fun part.

When the seat gets low, riding on the combine.

Woo.

We're off.

I survived the first (robust music) Eh, it's only 110 acres.

(wind blowing) (robust music) From Hawaii where 80% of food is imported, to Native American tribal land, where many people live in food deserts, hemp's return is being embraced in the ground.

(robust music) Here's something that might come from this harvest, next generation petroleum-free plastic.

This goat was 3D printed from US grown hemp.

Goodbye, Pacific Garbage Patch.

Right from these flowers.

Love to be part of that revolution.

(robust music) From ancient food staples to next generation applications, hemp and other biomaterials can provide an alternative to petrochemicals and synthetics.

(robust music) So, we start with Colorado hemp.

- Yep.

You have a ground hemp stock combined with PLA plastic and the PLA carries the hemp material.

- And PLA is?

- It's polylactic acid, so it's basically a bioplastic.

It's a starch-based bioplastic.

And so, they feed it through a machine.

And we're working with a local Colorado company who's actually partnering with us in developing this material.

And then, it comes out in a coil like this.

And the coil is what feeds into the top of the printer and makes the objects.

One year, we worked with a farmer who harvested the hemp crop With a John Deere Diesel tractor powered by sunflower oil that he grew.

and makes the objects.

(gentle music) - I even took a ride in a limo powered by hemp seed oil biofuel.

(gentle music) No limos in our ranch garden, no petroleum power other than shipping for ocean kelp and drip irrigation parts.

(gentle music) I knew hemp was an important crop for humanity and for what matters most to me, my own family.

Each year, we make an effort to take another small step toward food security on the Funky Butte Ranch.

We still have a long way to go.

(gentle music) The reason I brush pollen on these favorite plants, what farmers call these unicorns, is to cultivate the ideal plant for my family's needs.

The most nutritious seed, the sturdiest fiber for clothes and home.

The flower that helps keep us healthy and the roots to help build next year's soil.

The Garden of Eden plant is how we think of it.

Basically how everyone lived before supermarkets.

- [Randy] See, two seeds.

Yep, two seeds, two seeds.

- [Doug] Just right where we wan - Yeah.

And right here, see, look at here.

Perfect.

- Yeah, it's dropping them.

Yeah, baby.

- Yeah, baby.

That's right.

(upbeat music) -[Doug] Perfect moisture for germination.

- Yeah.

- Even our finish line was made from hemp fiber.

Believe it people, this is not a dress rehearsal.

This is not a drill.

This is 9th inning for humanity.

- So what we're looking for, You're on this side I'm on this side.

We're making sure that they're dropping every couple of inches.

See how they just dropped a bunch?

- Yeah.

- And then they dropping on that side too.

And then, level them up.

(engine whirring) It's working great.

But what we're doing with the rakes is making sure that we're getting the seed soil contact, that hemp likes to grow, but it's dropping the seeds impeccably.

I think we're gonna have a really good crop here in Vermont (soft upbeat music) I don't know why this ancient, simple 1930 seed drill built when hemp was still legal the first time and probably originally pulled by a horse or, yes, a team of oxen made our work so much easier in Vermont a week later.

But Edgar's lessons made me look smart.

The seeds dropped like a charm.

(upbeat music) Man, I love life at three miles an hour.

This is not a drill.

This is ninth inning for humanity.

- It's historic.

We are planting here in the north country to rebuild this cultivar and provide healthy products to This seed drill in terms of how it's dropping seed is more reliable than anyone I've ever used.

And it's the oldest one by far.

(upbeat music) This is the rebirth of an industry for Vermont, for the US, and for the world.

(upbeat music) (goat bleats) Now, we wait, we wait for them to sprout and we tend and love these plants.

- [Edgar] Yep, putting carbon back into the soil.

For sure.

- [Doug] Does this kind of hand bring back any memories for you?

- [Edgar] For dang sure.

Working with my granddaddy in '57, he would come in and he'd broadcast.

- Tractor or no?

- No, no tractor.

- No trac- - A goat call Red.

One more.

One more set of rows.

- [Doug] Oh my god, this hemp is... Come on.

Are we lost?

(group laughing) - [Companion 4] Oh.

Yeah, kinda.

- Yeah.

Come on in.

(soft upbeat music) Yeah, this would be a perfect place for it.

Oh.

Bring the ladder in.

We want the ladder uphill, so we don't fall backwards and break our neck.

- [Doug] Happy seven-week birthday, Incredible.

Oh.

Look at this.

These plants are taller than a person.

- [Doug] Wait.

- [Edgar] Here, I got the ladder.

- See, this is the thing.

This is a bad obituary.

The hemp farmer and journalist killed in ladder accident.

You don't want that.

First-ever cannabis death.

It's a big story, crop looks great, but equally big story is the new normal of millennial event.

In this case, fires, and the exact kind of climate change influenced event that our hemp crop is intending to mitigate through sequestering carbon in the soil.

through sequestering carbon in the soil.

First things first, let's talk about this incredible crop and what our plans are for it just halfway into this growing season.

Come on in.

You might get lost.

(soft upbeat music) This is a seven-week old little baby plant right here.

Look at this.

- Yeah.

- Taller than us.

And look at this fiber formation What does that tell you?

- [Edgar] Well, it looks like bamboo is so thick.

- [Doug] We actually are marketing this from a fertilized flower.

Most people want in the cannabis hemp world, sinsemilla these days, meaning, - Yeah.

- unfertilized female only.

We've got a theory.

Hey, everybody's happier when they're dating.

- We could do that.

We could actually, with some of our cultivars, I can actually cross-pollinate this and have a 32% protein and have good fiber, good hurds ratio.

But have 16, 17% CBDs in this industrial-grade food crop.

What better way (Doug laughing) to put the CBDs is in food to eat, 'cause everybody has to eat.

- Absolutely.

- And you get your CBDs as well, 'cause every one of us are endocannabinoid deficient.

We don't have enough in us all.

- I gotta tell you, I'm working hard to feed my endocannabinoid system.

- Me too, me too.

(Doug laughing) Back on the Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico, I knew how much work goes into making sure the garden, miracle of miracles, looks like it usually does in August and September year after year.

One year, we charted the crop as it grew from seed progressively taller than my sons, who are also growing a lot.

Most years, the plants seemed to grow together and embrace like a family themself, fed by the soil and they produce magnificent food for my family.

It was beginning to feel like if supermarkets and supply chains went away, maybe we'd be okay.

Between hemp, vegetables, and the daily gift of goat milk and chicken eggs, we'd make it with a little help from our friends.

(soft upbeat music) - As for Vermont, the field was basically a lush triplet of the Oregon and New Mexico fields.

The proof was that in all fields, more than once, if I'm really gonna tell this story, We could of used a map.

So, are we lost?

Do you guys know the- - I think we are.

I think we are.

(Erin laughing) Somewhere in this jungle.

- Marco.

(Erin laughing) - [Colin] Which way is home?

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) One thing Oregon had that season, which rained, blessed Vermont did not, was a catastrophic and all too familiar wildfire.

Outside in Southern Oregon in July, historic fires all around us, people being evacuated.

We see on the news this morning, - They were- - Stage three.

Get the hell out of this part of Medford.

(subdued music) - Go ahead.

- Here we go.

Ready?

- Yeah.

(metal clinks) - There you go.

- By the way, is that a Turkey vulture?

(metal clinks) - Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So, what's going on here is the hemp is growing too fast.

- [Edgar] All right.

We'll go head for the jungle, I - [Doug] I'm not a complainer, okay?

I live in New Mexico.

It's hot.

- Yeah.

- But the second you step out of the crop, it's triple digits.

You're melting and it's like 30 degrees cooler when you take a few steps under the canopy.

This is about- - It's 102 today.

- Geez.

- And in there is about 80, 85.

- This is about mitigating climate change.

We got two different climates.

- Yep.

- The hemp growing climate and the non-hemp growing climate.

(subdued music) I have a feeling that what impresses a lot of people is, wow, look how tall this hemp is.

- Yeah.

- But in truth, it's this moisture and carbon sequestration going on below the soil.

- [Edgar] You gotta start off with great soils.

If you don't have great soils, you're gonna have a poor yield.

- This is the hottest weather on record ever.

- This is the hottest weather on record ever.

Half the state on fire, it seems like.

And yet, this soil of the Samurai hemp crop is moist - Yep.

- and brown and beautiful.

Do you think these plants know that and appreciate it and actually produce better, let's say, higher protein or higher cannabinoid content based on the amount of human time that someone puts in and love to the crop?

- [Edgar] Well, I would say so.

As a farmer, I love every one of these plants.

So, you gotta show love to the soil and to the air and to the water and to the plant.

when you love it and give that a happy life.

(nature sounds) (tense music) No argument there from the Vermont crew.

(subdued music) You described coming down into our shared Samurai field as your happy space.

Talk a little bit - It's very true.

- about that.

- Yeah, so- - What was the... - Just being down there, the peace, the quiet.

- The terpenes had to play a role.

- The terpenes, they were, yeah.

And it was always where I would come after a long day.

It's where I got to actually relax and take a step back and really enjoy the plant and the nature and hang out with the butterflies and the bees.

(Doug sighs) - Let's talk about terpenes.

Boy, when "Scratch and Sniff" television comes, this is the kind of episode that I'd wanna be part of.

The fragrance embedded in the natural biochemical process in these hemp flowers has endured through snow and six months of loving.

But what it's giving, oh my gosh, it smells like good health.

(water spurts) (Doug exhales) It feels clean.

So, if we were testing carbon levels right here versus outside of this field, it would be totally different.

- Totally different.

Just look how clear it is down here.

You look up, up above it and it's all smoke.

- Wow.

- Right in here, there's no smoke.

So, it's actually absorbing all that CO2 out of the air right now as we speak.

(gentle music) Now, Edgar's my hemp professor.

We'll visit him whenever we're stumped about any part of the hemp season here.

It's amazing to think that a family survival can depend on a handful of seeds, but it ain't a new phenomenon.

This has been going on for a long time.

In fact, there's a long proud hemp history in the United States, which I joined when I was invited to help harvest the first hemp crop at George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in 200 years.

(gentle music) - [Jason] In our history in Virginia was actually founded on this.

Everybody says tobacco founded the colonies.

Well, hemp was a major part of that as well.

- [Dean] The major reason Washington's growing hemp is for the fibers, is for making the twine and the ropes for his extensive fishing fleet.

(jovial music) - So, here's something we should know about using colonial era equipment.

It's extremely sharp.

Be careful with those blades.

(jovial music) (jovial music continues) Tell me, when's harvest for this plant?

(blade slices) - [Dean] Today.

(group laughing) - Really?

- Yes.

- [Dean] We are gonna take this thing down today.

- I love it.

(jovial music) It's looking good.

- This is the first time hemp ha to Mount Vernon since George Washington's time.

That's pretty amazing.

- Yeah.

Amazing.

- Great.

We're gonna take this historic sickle right here and we are gonna cut some of this hemp and we're gonna stack it and you are here to be a part of that process.

Oh my gosh.

- Breaking the hemp.

Well, a (indistinct) being used is beautiful as you swoosh.

- Oh Lord.

- You wanna cut some hemp?

- Oh, please.

This is an honor.

(jovial music) - We are gonna go for a nice big tall one like this and you're gonna use the sickle and it's just a cutting action like that, twice.

- Yep.

Yeah, please do.

- Can I try it?

And near the base Dean was saying?

- [Deborah] Yeah, near the base.

- [Doug] Wow.

It's a strong fiber.

- [Deborah] Yeah.

(chuckles) You can- - [Dean] Washington does mention something about separating the male flowers from the female.

'Cause Washington felt once he acquired a plant of any sort that he should never have to look for or buy that plant again.

- [Doug] At the time that George Washington was alive, we were an agrarian society.

90% of Americans were farmers.

Today, were at something like 1 or 2%.

(group chattering) - [Deborah] Once we got it harvested, we're gonna bundle it up, put it into a shock, and dry it in the field.

- He was totally food independent.

That was a huge responsibility they felt to improve their agricultural practices through their experimentation, through their failures, but also through their successes.

- Smells really nice here.

- Yeah.

- [Doug] The terpene's up in all the plants.

(group laughing) - No, Washington wrote in a letter to a friend that agriculture has ever been amongst the most favorite amusements of my life.

- Wow.

- And he devoted the 45 years that he was here and even as president to trying to improve American's agricultural practices.

- We have decided to be as period as possible today with our clothing, we are using even the digital microphones that the founding fathers used - Absolutely.

- in their time.

- God.

- Heavy?

- [Companion 6] That smells like college.

(upbeat music) (goat bleats) (upbeat music) - Yep.

Hemp is one of humanity's longest utilized crops.

And that's for a reason.

It's just so useful from nutrition to rocket parts.

It's even going into space.

(upbeat music) For now, modern farmers are using Virginia hemp hurd for high-end hemp bedding and carbon-neutral hemp building.

(jovial music) Back along the Potomac, 200 years before space travel, Dean Norton told me... - The hemp was really, really important to him, because he had a fishing fleet, quite an extensive fishing fleet.

You could catch over a million shad and herring a year.

- Wow.

- But we do know that they were repairing the net - That's exactly right.

- with the hemp that was made.

- Is that right?

(jovial music) (hammer slams) - We drive that end into that seam, so it tightens the whole boat up, stiffened.

(wood thuds) Pine resin.

(jovial music) - We actually made a boat last year that would replicate the sort of boat he would've used (mumbles) It's really great.

- So, it's right here at the Mount Vernon on the river here?

- Oh, yeah.

We're just about 150 feet away.

- Can I see?

- You got it.

(jovial music) - And they said that the river was just alive with these fish.

So, you would anchor a net on the shoreline.

When the fish were running, you're catching probably hundreds if not thousands of fish at a time.

- [Doug] Wow.

- [Rob] But what really made the fish so valuable is that they would salt it and pack 'em into barrels.

And it's a barrel of salted fish last well over a year if they've got enough for everybody on the farm.

But the surplus, he sold, and there were sometimes he'd made almost two thirds of his annual income just from selling the fish.

- This is just fascinating that hemp played a role in the fishing fleet.

- Well, the fishing fleet, the boat building maintenance, then the sails would be made with hemp fibers.

The final step actually in building the boat is to caulk the seams.

Back in the day, it would've been old hemp rope.

- When this rope was at its peak, when it was fresh and new, - Yeah.

- would you pick it or today's most top-end synthetic rope for your rigging?

- Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Synthetic rope is dangerous.

- What do you think George Washington would have thought had he been told that hemp was banned for a lifetime?

- He would've felt like that was criminal.

Not the other way around.

- This is unrehearsed.

This is colonial style.

Watch how strong this is.

This has not been tested.

Ooh.

- Hold on.

Tug of war.

(both grunts) - What's old is new.

- Yeah.

- This is the future and it was the best available in colonial times.

- This was necessary for people to sail their navies, to protect their shores, to protect their country.

- The sides on this one are southern yellow pine and the bottom is what's called Atlantic white cedar.

It's actually a juniper.

- We want to go over and see their craft on the punt over there, which is a bigger boat.

- [Rob] Mm-hmm.

The boat must weigh 6, 700 pounds.

The oxen are just so mellow.

But then we pushed it into the river.

10 of us jumped into it.

It's Bob's like a cork, didn't leak a drop.

(jovial music) - Remember, there's shad and their spawning, right, So they want to get up in that creek.

Well, Washington, sits just right there.

- So, they're coming back in at the end of the day and probably on the spot, unloading on some form of canvas.

- Yeah.

- Their fish for smoking.

- Right.

So, this is one plant.

- One plant.

Long, long fiber.

Yeah.

- This - That's the pitch.

- hurd, and the pitch of the hurd - Yeah.

- is a valuable commodity today for things like building, horse bedding.

Right.

- [Deborah] The more you scrape that off, the softer and softer the fiber gets.

So, when you spin it, you have to add water.

Better, but that becomes your thread.

- Oh.

- And then... (Deborah chuckles) But all of the threads here are from our sheep's wool.

We dyed it here.

These are in traditional colors of the time.

And using natural dyes.

And we want to use that fiber, so that we can really be farm-to-table, farm-to-shirt, and all that good stuff.

- Yeah.

Imagine, there's a lot of math and multiplying it.

So, it takes a lot of fiber to make one piece of cloth.

But when you're done, you're gonna have a bolt of fabric, not just enough for one shirt.

- So, you really can do something even on a relatively small amount.

- Oh, yeah.

- Clothe a family even.

- Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

- Oh.

And no place like Mount Vernon delve deeper into my continuing study of who's more efficient, a team of oxen or a John Deere?

(group chattering) - [Dean] Here are some very special guests here, Doug Fine.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Nice to meet you.

- [Dean] World-renowned hemp patriot.

And- - Is it okay if I greet them and... - Yeah, this is Ben.

- Hey, Ben.

- Ben and his teammate is named Buck.

- Buck.

- And they were two in March, so that makes them about two and a half now.

And when a steer turns four, it becomes officially an ox.

And when Washington died in 1799, he owned over 60 oxen.

- Wow.

- It was the most numerous of his draft animals.

- My personal obsession with oxen, usefulness aside, I didn't know how I'd explain the absolute relevance of that topic to my friends in Vermont where the hemp was growing almost visibly like, well, like a weed.

Maybe they'd relate to President Washington's harvest methods.

As is the case in much of the world, today's hemp industry is new and modern processing equipment such as the decortication machinery that separates the parts of hemp fiber harvests can be expensive.

- Nobody's got a decortication machine.

We don't have anybody processing fiber in the state yet.

But I got a feeling it's coming.

And look how beautiful some of this fiber is.

- It's absolutely - Mm-hmm.

- incredible.

- It's stunning.

- It's eight weeks to go and already some of it's like 8, 9, 10 feet high, and just beautiful.

You could use this fiber for anything.

- We gotta put it to use.

- It is part of life in combining and harvesting modern times that you are going to have to stop every couple of passes.

Maybe oxen in the end are as efficient.

And in the day, they were, I'm imagining used in both the hemp sowing and harvest process.

- Yeah, if there's any plowing involved with the field, that would be done by oxen or mules.

Or when the plant is harvested, you're probably gonna be putting it in a cart to bring it wherever you want to store it.

(jovial music) - Do you think this would fit in carry-on?

Or am I gonna have to check this?

- TSA, here we go.

(group laughing) - Great question.

- George Washington was a real farmer who got his fingers dirty in the soil nearly every day.

Also, he was personally brave by fighting the great empire of his day.

He risked hanging if he had lost a war for what would become a free and great nation.

I'm proud that hemp was so vital in US history that the nation's first president cultivated cannabis here where I stand from 1734 through 1799.

And that it's now back again here at Mount Vernon in the 21st century, plowed by oxen, no less, seen by thousands of visitors every year.

But also where I stand, human beings were enslaved.

Slavery is an abomination, of course, it must never happen again anywhere.

President Washington released the enslaved population of Mount Vernon upon his death, the only slaveholding founding father to do so.

By continuing to learn from and improve on the imperfect past, my visit here instilled in me further the belief that we can realize the dream of a more perfect union and a more peacefully thriving world.

After that harvest, I was ready for a hemp-infused massage.

So, I headed to my friend, Dani Billings' Nature's Root Spa in Colorado.

And this is not just a massage, people, not just a CBD-infused massage.

This is beyond farm-to-table.

This is farm-to-massage table.

All of Dani's spa products come from her hemp field seven miles away.

I'm so happy to have you here.

- Wow.

It's a tough job.

Somebody's gotta do it.

- Let's talk about the farm-to-spa thing.

- Yeah.

- [Doug] All these hemp-related ingredients come from how far away?

- [Dani] Well, we have five local different farms here in Colorado.

So, they're coming from these farms here in Colorado.

And okay, so that's the citrus CBD.

So, this has 25 milligrams of CBD in it right here.

Okay, well let's take you back and give you a CBD massage from a local hemp field.

- Blanket here.

And why don't we start you face down?

- Sounds great.

- Okay.

- Sounds good?

- Thanks.

You can put your clothes here.

- [Dani] And this is 100% my passion - Hey, so how do you feel?

- Gelatinous.

- Yes.

- Energized, but relaxed like - Good.

- A plus, plus, plus.

- Good, good, good, good.

- Oh my gosh.

(water splashing) (group faintly chatters) (group screaming) (water splashing) (soft upbeat music) - Again, not sure how directly relevant it was to my Vermont colleagues that I was getting a CBD massage other than to show the importance of having fun at work.

But Colin and Erin seemed to have that lesson dialed in.

In fact, after a hard day's fun at work, they like to hike to the river to have more fun.

If anything, they were reminding me about this vital life lesson.

Have fun along the way while trying to do some good.

In this case, growing healthy food for family and customer.

(tense music) It's parched and we are waiting for monsoon like any animal that you've ever seen in a nature documentary.

Watching those clouds carefully.

(tense music) I remember it was literally a week ago, this plant was not taller than my kids, let alone myself.

(tense music) Own your seeds, people.

(sniffs) They're just forming now and this is your family's security.

If you're ever told, that's not how agriculture has been run for the last century or so.

Here's a good answer.

How's that been working out for farmers and the planet and worldwide health?

(thunder rumbling) (rain pitter-patters) Thank heaven for monsoon.

Every year, it's a big sigh of relief when the rains come here in the high desert.

We're all rehydrating right now, (robust music) Ooh.

Biodiesel for Bands.

- Hey, guys.

Come here.

- Hey, John.

So, we're in the Biodiesel for Bands' van, driving on much reduced petroleum, the short distance from farm-to-spa.

(Doug and Dani faintly chattering) - Gets dense and there's so many colas on this that it goes all the way down.

- Wow.

- We'll have coalesce all the way down to the bottom and that are just like... - And then, how does it get into product?

- So, from that point, then we turn it into a concentrate, and then we infuse the concentrate into base products, base oils, and then- - The things that went into my massage, right?

- Exactly.

Yeah.

And then, we use those in all the products.

- Creation station going down.

(Doug laughing) - [Doug] All organic natural things.

- Yes.

- This is cinnamon oil.

- Yes.

Cinnamon oil.

Yes.

(Dani drowns out Doug) - So, the- - Yes, organic lavender, organic rosemary.

All this stuff right here is as organic as we can get it.

- [Doug] Okay.

- So, right here, we have 50 milligram capsules and chlorophyll capsules from plant.

- Can I try a few?

- Yes.

Yes, definitely.

So, be very light with the syringe.

Very responsive.

- Like that?

- Yep.

- Did I go- - Just right there.

- That's perfect.

(Doug gasps) Yeah, it's pretty thick if you look at it, so.

- Oh yeah.

- And that's the whole plant that has all the fats, the terpenes, the waxes, and the lipids.

And then, right here (Doug gulps) is actually... - I like my job.

(upbeat music) (goat bleats) I used to be more of an animal guy, totemically speaking.

I was like the the goat whisperer in our family.

When Natalie Merchant or Melissa Etheridge was being a little rambunctious on the milking stand.

And it's taken me now half a decade of playing around with this hemp cannabis plant to really understand the magnitude of all plant intelligence.

In fact, the author, Michael Pollan, argues that we've co-evolved with the cannabis plant.

We all have built-in receptors for the good things that hemp brings.

It's called our endocannabinoid system.

(gentle music) It's puzzling to my sons that the government wants to come to our ranch for one purpose, to test just one of our superfood crops.

They're like not the tomatoes and not the peppers and the beans.

It doesn't make sense to anyone and it's going away, but you gotta do it as of now.

We did it.

We passed.

Phew.

And now, we can harvest our superfood.

Thank you, thank you, plants.

(subdued music) Hemp should be as easy to grow as tomatoes.

I'm so thankful to them both.

(Doug munches) Mm, mm.

There's a lot at stake here in this field.

The secret is out.

Hemp superfood is flying off shelves with each supply chain jolt.

But what about in coming years?

According to some studies, no joke, more than 200 million acres of regenerative farms are required practically the area of North America's farmland in order to sequester enough carbon to stabilize the planet's extreme climate situation.

Hemp peaked recently at half a million acres and has since had some setbacks.

Not bad, but not yet nearly enough.

So, how do we get even close to that massive amount of land?

Well, in my life, my celebrities are farmers.

As we both cultivated our respective fields in the middle of a lockdown, I decided to ask a hemp farming friend, Micah Nelson, AKA, the musician Particle Kid, what he thought the best route was to getting all those acres cultivated.

- We do it one poop fork at a time.

(robust music) I'm gonna... (poop falling) (robust music) Fresh from Farm Aid, the organization founded by his father, Willie Nelson, to support exactly the kind of farming we're talking about.

Michael also told me that he's seeing more and more farmers who are experiencing the economic benefits of farming the old fashioned way, regeneratively.

I told him that here on the Funky Butte Ranch, we're doing it for health and in case food security goes from optional to mandatory.

We're sure not rooting for that, but dang it, another wildfire season's on the horizon.

One of the things from last year's Farm Aid that I learned a lot from talking to farmers was how they've been able to save their farms by switching to regenerative practices and switching to organic, because they're able to slap that organic label on their product and make way more money, support their family farm.

With hemp, you could get twice the yield with half the water and none of the pesticides.

- Loving on your plants.

They say that the plants, like when you play music to 'em, I honk my saxophone at 'em.

I don't know if that really qualifies as music, but they seem happy.

And I'm just curious, as a professional musician, if you use music as a way of serenading your crop.

- Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I... (Micah clears throat) - I was hoping this would happen -How about... (guitar strumming) Everything, everything, everything, everything is bulls**t It's bullsh** It grew a little mushroom And then a hairy ape man He put it in his mouth He started having thoughts All kinds of ideas We're in early September.

The flowers are forming here on these female plants.

The males are starting to pollinate, as we've seen.

So, we've got what, seems like four, maybe eight even weeks left before harvest.

- Mm-hmm, I'd say six to eight weeks left until we're at full maturation.

- So, we gotta start thinking about harvest, right?

We know that we gotta... The seed is precious.

We wanna be developing the seed.

So, some sort of silo storage some way, 'cause it's imperative to get the seed dry immediately or it could mold and get too hot and burn itself.

- Right.

- Immediately get some forced air going 'til we get it down to that 8% moisture.

- Starting to form crystals and everything for real.

Oh my gosh.

But I think we'll see some wonderful flower development and I'm looking behind us here, the bees sure seem to like it.

(laughs) - So, with all the efforts going on nationally to bring back pollinator habitat and be friendly for bees, these are some of the first honeybees I've seen all season and they're on the hemp flowers collecting pollen.

So, little did we know that planting hemp was gonna be a pollinator habitat.

(robust music) - So glad to share this property, bees.

(robust music) The hemp is also looking delight and delicious at midseason in Vermont.

Another element that all three hemp crops share, despite their great distance from one another in Oregon, New Mexico, and Vermont, pollinators love them.

To summarize the crucial role pollinators play in our food cultivation, if the bees survive, we humans have a chance at surviving.

(robust music) Bees and other pollinators, of course, are the new save the whales with good reason.

We need them.

They are part of this ecosystem and it's a pleasure to be dive bombed by them.

(robust music) - So- - The bees absolutely love this.

We're doing more for pollinators.

It would be interesting to see what the protein count is on this pollen, because it's certainly attracting all different species of bees.

- Boy, that bee is gonna have to drop off that pollen pretty soon, because she is - Full.

- weighted down.

(companion 5 laughing) - That's like overloaded cargo.

(robust music) To get those hundreds of millions of acres cultivated so humanity can begin stabilizing this extreme climate situation, hemp has to make business sense for struggling independent farmers.

The cannabis hemp leading brand, if we're smart, aspires to make fine livings for our farming families, but it also aims to do wider good.

Why not work righteousness into every step of the process?

It can still be super lucrative.

Maybe someday we won't even need Farm Aid anymore.

Maybe there will be main streets again, because it's times like these that make you realize the earth will be fine.

All the hand wringing is just about whether we humans will still be here to enjoy our streaming and our sushi, which is all well and good.

But as harvest time approached, the hemp fields in both Oregon and Vermont were taking a long time to mature.

The seeds were ripening, but only to about 50% maturity.

And Edgar said that ideally, we want to harvest at 70% maturity.

Halloween was upon us along with predictions of hard frost on both coasts.

At least the wildfires were out.

So, the cooler the weather, the longer you can actually cure it.

or it takes a couple weeks.

Like you said, a lot of people rush it.

- And the timing is very delicate.

We have to be careful how we clip the flowers and the seed and place them in the tote bag, so we can get them to our drying spot.

(upbeat music) Bottom line, Edgar, with half a century experience in hemp fields, had seen it all.

He said that in a late harvest like ours, what seeds hadn't fully ripened would do so in the drying process.

In fact, maybe it was the holiday, but the mood in the field that day struck me as light.

(upbeat music) Hey, it's good to see you, my friend.

- Hey.

- Hey, hey.

- Oh.

It's good to see you.

Happy Halloween and thanks for coming to the hemp field.

- [Edgar] Looks fantastic.

- What's your favorite part of the hemp plant, Bernie?

- [Edgar] Oh, I've changed my mind so many times, but now it's the flower.

- And it's finally quieting down here all day.

The birds were going crazy.

The birds seem to just love this crop.

- They were eating the seeds done to the lower end.

Not only that, now the eagles are eating it.

- [Doug] Awesome.

(group laughing) - Hey.

(group laughing) All right.

(footsteps pattering) - It's just saving humanity.

That's all.

(footsteps pattering) Ready.

We are seed rich.

- [Companion 7] We're seed rich.

- Thank you, EJ, for being such a great professor.

- Hey, no problem.

Yeah.

- Fiber.

(tense music) A few days later, I danced 3,200 miles east to teach what I'd learned to my Vermont colleagues.

That's how we rolled that season.

Still, as I blazed across North America, news reports of a massive storm system were hard to ignore, and I felt pressured to succeed.

This was a make or break harvest for Vermont Farmacy.

Really though, I realized that what I was feeling was just the pressure all farmers have always felt at harvest time when a storm is on the horizon.

(robust music) - The snow, it has not stopped all the way from noon today.

It just keeps coming down.

If you take a look behind me, the roads, they are covered.

But that's not for lack of tryin by all the crews across our region, trying to keep them clear.

I spoke to some of them earlier today.

Take a look.

(robust music) - This is like the most snow we've had in almost two years.

And... - Well, you heard the man.

If you do not have to be out on these roads, please, please stay at home.

(gentle music) - And still, the Samurai cultivar is looking and smelling beautiful, It was a huge relief that the Oregon crop was in and drying.

We harvested about a ton of seed from a crop that's building soil and fighting climate change.

That's superfood for a lot of people.

It always surprises me how much the earth provides.

Your grocery store produce aisle has nothing on this.

And if I was worried about the weather back east, I don't know, I guess the newlyweds of Vermont Farmacy were just used to it.

Everyone just worked.

No one rushed or whined.

Sure, it felt like a long time since the midseason river plunge, but Vermonters bundle up the way that cowboys saddle up.

Armed with Edgar and Margaret's education about how to handle a late developing crop, now I was the teacher.

This is why you tend to pay attention in a class you might use in real life.

While the weather held, we jammed, with friends of Colin and Erin joining the hand harvest.

Another 48 hours, another ton of seed, flower, and fiber harvested, another baby step toward a healthy planet and people.

As we're harvesting, we're noticing these meticulously even rows.

And suddenly, I'm thinking back to how we planted with this three quarter of a century-old solid seed drill.

Well, Erin and Colin, we've made it to harvest day.

How are you guys feeling?

- Great.

- Yeah, excellent.

We've gone through the ups and downs and the rollercoaster of nerves and thinking that the weather would spoil the entire crop and we'd lose it, but here on harvest day, everything's matured and dried out, and it's just perfect.

- It's prime time.

- So, like a week ago, I would see a seed like this, it's totally green, right?

And not much happening on it.

And think if we're harvesting it now, that's not gonna be a viable seed.

And then, I saw after two days of drying, it'll mature.

- That's awesome.

- It's really cool.

Yeah.

- Yeah, and that was the hard thing for I think Carrie and I being out here trying to judge maturities and never having harvested the crop.

- And it all worked out beautifully, even when the snow came at the tail end of harvest.

When we showed up the next day to collect our gear, we learned that we'd harvested in the nick of time.

One day later would've been trouble.

But this was not a crew thrown by a bit of frostbite.

What's more, this crop was another petroleum-free hand harvest and certified organic to boot.

Certified organic means the customer and our families can know certain dangerous toxins are not applied to the crop or soil.

- Now that this type of cannabis is federally legal, to me as an organic regulator, it's just a plant.

And if you were growing organic beans or organic radicchio or whatever, you'd have to follow the same rules that you're following for this plant.

(leaves rustling) - [Erin] And here we have St.

John's-wort.

- We love to see this much diversity in a field and in the hedgerows, because in the federal standards for organic certification, there is a requirement for biodiversity.

So, even the huge corporate organic farms in California are in theory, supposed to have biodiversity.

Seeing this much diversity of plants and a nice understory of native plants below the cash crop really just shows that we have thriving biodiversity in this organic system.

- Wow.

And I can't help saying, as dedicated as I know we all are to organics, I can't help saying, I noticed cash crop.

Well, we're growing a cash crop.

(group laughing) - Oh, yeah.

- We're working on it.

- It's up to your marketing, so.

In the end, hand harvesting is like almost as fast as mechanized harvesting on a certain level of acreage.

- I completely agree with that, And I think mechanical combine would get gummed up and we'd have a lot of issues with the strong fiber that we produce out this field.

- Comes out so easily.

And then, it's surprisingly somehow after a month of rain, has gotten so dry, you can just strip it right off.

Which makes for a pretty easy hand harvest all in all.

Successful I'd say.

- And always happy to cut out our fossil carbon footprint.

- The solar panels power the dryer for our seeds here at this organic popcorn farm.

So Vermont.

- Yesterday was a wild ride.

We were pulling the last plants in the snow out there.

It was really coming down.

We got probably three or four inches last night, so.

- But I love that we harvest by hand, zero carbon miles, then come to a nearby town and find that our air dryer, the popcorn dryer for our hemp this year is powered by solar panels.

You can't be any more on brand than that.

The mission ahead of us now is we've gotta get that moisture tester in there and get our seeds down to the right moisture for storage.

And time is not on our side.

So, we've gotta figure out this popcorn drying equipment, dry the seed, and then we can maybe, maybe take a breath for a minute.

- Hopefully.

We still gotta get it clean in there too.

- And then, process our products.

That's ugh.

- Right, right.

- It never, never ends.

- No, no rest.

Not for the farmer.

- Why do we look so happy?

I can't figure it out.

- Ah.

It's just beautiful to be outside and alive today.

(soft upbeat music) - The sun's clean and free.

With the seed drying, we made hemp waffles topped with our just harvested hemp seed, raspberries, and Colin and Erin's home-tapped maple syrup.

Surrounded by the wreaths that the family gathers, makes, and sells at holiday time.

Get ready for vintage top-shelf hemp.

In the developing craft hemp market, customers already look for varietals that are not the same as everywhere else.

A Vermont harvest will taste different from a New Mexico or an Oregon hemp product.

Vive la difference.

(upbeat music) Now, as fragrant and delicious as harvest season is, it's not the end of the farming season anymore.

It's the beginning of processing season.

(gentle music) (shoe slides) Time to process.

(gentle music) In a mountainside commercial kitchen some weeks later, we processed the season's hemp harvest bounty into thousands of bottles of our respective products.

Maybe processed isn't the best word.

More like grabbing a cauldron and asking what would the shaman do?

Mass market, this is not, this is craft hemp.

For Vermont Farmacy's founders, righteousness and bioavailability are as important as revenue.

For me too.

On my product, I even slapped on compostable labels with non-toxic Stickum.

More expensive, but the annual wildfires tell me it's too late to cut corners.

- Ingredients.

We're sourcing everything as locally as possible, as organically as possible.

So, having that in mind and then just seeing the results and that it works for people, that's validation for me.

(object thuds) - Awesome.

But right now, it's just a mom-and-pop operation and we're trying to get to tomorrow.

- But my favorite part is we had the herbs that we put in the salve.

So, arnica, calendula, St.

John's-wort, and about 10 others.

We soak it in these jars for full moon cycle.

- [Doug] Ah, I love that.

- So, we get all that energy from the moon.

(jar clinks) And I usually try to do it right on the new moon or the full moon to get it started.

(robust music) - Mixing the hemp seed oil and infusing it with the flower from its whole, from the same plant.

(machine humming) What do you think, Colin?

How much do we want in here?

A couple pounds?

- [Colin] A couple pounds.

Keep going.

(bottles clinking) - Suddenly, a run of just under a thousand.

It feels like a lot when you see it like this, but.

Going to heat this up to the temperature at which that carbon molecule is removed and the oil becomes infused with the cannabinoids, terpenes, bioflavonoids.

- Right.

- We're gonna do it at about 220, 230 degrees for about two hours in the hemp seed oil today for our concentrate before we bottle this tomorrow.

(ladle clinking) Add three liters of hemp seed oil.

Now, let's talk about our hemp seed oil.

First of all, it's a superfood.

In nutritive terms, it has a what many nutritionists consider an ideal balance, a ratio of omega fatty acids.

- Mm-hmm.

- Right.

- Everything you do, everything that I do is small batch, top-shelf.

We grew this hemp.

Cap her up.

And we have healthy farm-to-table organic product.

Yay.

(robust music) (bodies slams) - Oh.

- Hey.

- Oh.

- Oh.

- Oh.

- Doug- - Have you tried the salve?

- Oh, I'd love the salve.

- You should try it out.

- Thank you.

By Vermont Farmacy.

I've heard about this.

- Yes - You want try some hemp in hemp - Oh, man, that looks great.

- It's yours.

- Have you seen it?

- Oh, I haven't.

You should have some tincture.

- Oh, yeah.

Wait, I already have tincture.

- Oh, yeah.

- Oh, yea.

Oh, then you should try (Doug drowns out Erin) This tincture.

- Oh, yum.

- You try the salve.

- Hemp in hemp.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- I love the salve.

- Oh.

Oh, you should- - You want some hemp in hemp?

- I do want the hemp in hemp.

(Doug laughing) You pro... (Erin chuckles) - Thanks for being part of this adventure.

- Yeah, I'm so glad.

We're so glad to be working with you.

It feels really good.

- Same here.

- Yeah, it's fun.

- It's so much fun.

- It is.

- Let's budget a little more time for the river next time, I think.

- Yeah, definitely.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - That's my only- - My only critique.

(Colin laughing) (robust music) Back home, more than a mile high on the Funky Butte Ranch, the Vermont harvest snowflakes had barely melted off me when my family and I harvested a winter's worth of superfood bounty.

As we always do, we erupted in harvest appreciation ceremony just as humans have for eight or more millennia.

We've been adding special prayers for big snowpack in the hills come winter as a way to fend off future wildfires.

Ooh.

(sharply inhales) It's harvest day when the seeds are 70% ripe.

Mm.

Meaning they are brown, too hard to squeeze between your finger, and emerging from their calyx.

The plants do most of the work.

I'm just a midwife.

(sighs) As we wrap up harvest season here, all in all, this field feels more and more to me, like something pretty close to the Garden of Eden.

It's not just my view.

(chuckles) The bees and the hummingbirds, aslo seem to be flipping out.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) And speaking of ancient modes, you might call our processing technique, somewhat old school.

Watching my family work the harvest on our very fragrant porch, it dawned on me that for now, we are the oxen.

No complaints.

I'm outside with people I love and a lot of pollinators as we take our own next steps in the journey to food independence.

Putting aside goat milk, chicken eggs, and other vegetables, we did the math.

We harvested enough hemp seed to feed each human member of our family One protein rich serving every three days for a year, one step at a time.

Hemp leaf pasta.

(tongue clicks) Most of all, it is delicious in goat yogurt.

So, I guess on reflection, my message at harvest time is if I can take baby steps toward food independence, so can you and your family.

My life in the wildfire zone has obviously been a wake up call.

And it's also showed me that recovery happens if we humans just connect the dots in our lives with everything we buy and eat.

I think humanity has a shot at thriving post petroleum.

And let me tell you, it's a fine feeling to know that you and your family will survive another year no matter what.

But I feel good But I feel high But I feel good But I feel high Funding for this film provided in part by Columbus Jewish Foundation, Healthy Oilseeds from Carrington, North Dakota, and Dr.

Bronner's Magic Soap.

To order "American Hemp Farmer" Please visit, AmericanHempFarmer.com Deeper down than this y'all Deeper down Deeper down than this y'all Deeper down Deeper down than this y'all Deeper down Deeper down than this y'all Deeper down