Hemp for Victory

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"HFV" redirects here. For other uses, see HFV (disambiguation).

Hemp For Victory

Directed by	Raymond Evans
Produced by	U.S. Department of Agriculture
Written by	Brittain B. Robinson
Starring	Lee D. Vickers (Narrator)
Music by	Reuben Ford (Monaural)
Release date(s)	1942
Running time	16 minutes
Language	English
IMDb profile

Hemp for Victory is a black-and-white United States government film made during the Second World War, explaining the uses of hemp.

The film was made to encourage farmers to grow hemp for the war effort because the United States was facing a hemp shortage. The intended audience was probably Kentucky corn farmers, since the narrator emphasises the fact that land used to grow corn could also grow hemp, and a segment from the song My Old Kentucky Home can be heard on the soundtrack. The film shows a history of hemp and hemp products, how hemp is grown, and how hemp processed into rope, cloth, cordage and other products.

As it was made by the US Government, it is public domain and is freely available for download on the Internet.

Before 1989, the film was relatively unknown, and the United States Department of Agriculture library and the Library of Congress told all interested parties that no such movie was made by the USDA or any branch of the U.S. government. Two VHS copies were recovered and donated to the Library of Congress on May 19, 1989 by Maria Farrow, Carl Packard, and Jack Herer.

Hemp for Victory is also the title of a definitive book about hemp, published 2006 in London by Whitaker Press (ISBN 0-9549939-0-X). It is the work of several authors active in the hemp world, including Kenyon Gibson, Nick and Cindy Mackintosh, Woody Harrelson, Mina Hegaard and Sam Heslop. The title is taken from the 1942 film, as described above, and contains a transcript of the same. The book covers the history of hemp and then goes into a section on the many uses of hemp, with practical information on paper, hemp oil, hemp fuel, textiles, rope, etc. Processing and cultivation are also covered systematically, with much reference information given throughout, including a list of world-wide hemp shops and a bibliography. Linked to this book is a blog site titled Hemp for Victory - www.hempforvictory.blogspot.com, where news, events and technical information are posted regularly. With the word search feature, this site allows for users to be taken to a specific subject instantly, making it an indexed source of information of much use to the hemp world.