Hi daima, thanks for the reply. If it is 6% of the contiguous land mass of the US then I hate to say but it will not wean us off of oil by itself. There is NO WAY to plant that much and harvest it. 6% of the contiguous land mass of the US is a lot of land! Massively more land than we currently use for farming every other crop in total. A lot of that land being in, as an example, Alaska where needless to say we won't be planting in arctic wilderness.

That being said, however, the energy market for hemp is still massive. If we do nothing but what the Europeans do and use B20 (20% biodiesel) that is still a significant reduction in air pollution. The current energy market in the US is over $60 billion per year so 20% of that is an extra $12 billion in our farmers instead of oil executives pockets . Also, there are a lot of new process' coming out for creating fuel from biomass so there could be some efficiency gains from these new technologies.

Also, that is just looking at hemp for fuel. If nothing else we should be growing it to keep from cutting down trees for paper. It used to be said a squirrel could go from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and never touch the ground. Now we are down to less than 4% of our old growth forest and we are cutting it down for what? Paper? Cardboard? Fiberboard and pressboard? That just doesn't make any sense what-so-ever if we have any other alternative, let alone one that pollutes less and creates superior products to wood.

Well, even if it's not an entire solution by itself it would be a significant reduction of the problem. Used in conjunction with other forms of renewable energy sources I believe it would reduce our pollution and energy problems by well over 20-40% based on research figures.

And yes, the birds would love it and it would help them to come back from extinction. That is a worthwhile goal all by itself.