Twenty miles east of his office at the University of Nebraska, plant geneticist Ismail Dweikat finds what he’s looking for at the fringe of a budding cornfield: wild hemp.

Mixed among other roadside weeds, the hemp bears the familiar narrow five-fingered leaves synonymous with marijuana but almost none of pot’s psychoactive component, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

But hemp is unlikely to be anything more than a ditch weed in the Cornhusker state this year and possibly for years to come. Despite terrain that farmers say is ideal for growing hemp, Nebraskans haven’t been able to cash in on what they believe is a potential gold rush, caught in an epic battle with the government.

“There are so many obstacles,” bemoans Dweikat.

The only permissible means of growing hemp in the state is through university research. But even researchers have faced a series of hurdles that have meant not a single hemp growing operation has launched in Nebraska.

Dweikat was hoping to plant two acres of hemp this spring at a test plot but almost four months after the University of Nebraska sent paperwork seeking to import seeds from Canada to the Drug Enforcement Administration, researchers do not have all the permits necessary to import special seeds from Manitoba, Canada, with THC content certified at less than 0.3%.

If and when the seeds arrive at the university, they will receive the kind of security usually reserved for precious gems. Dweikat says the seeds will be locked in a metal safe inside a locked cage. The university was asked to add metal reinforcement under the safe when DEA agents worried someone could saw the wood beneath the strongbox to get to the seeds, he says.

“There is such a misunderstanding of hemp, it just dumbfounds me,” explains Jon Hanson, an organic farmer in Marquette, who says he’d love to grow hemp on his 480-acre farm.

Unlike neighboring Colorado, where it’s legal to grow such commercial marijuana strains as Purple Haze and Chemdawg, farmers in Nebraska and elsewhere are forbidden by law from planting industrial hemp for prosaic purposes such as fiber and seed oil.

The DEA considers hemp a Schedule I drug – the same as heroin and LSD. The US Farm Bill signed by Barack Obama in 2014 carved out an exception for research and pilot programs, if states pass laws permitting it. Twenty-nine states have done so, according to the Hemp Industries Association.

But in Nebraska, a state bill to allow farmers to apply for this exception was thwarted by senators and police officials who feared hemp would be a gateway crop to recreational marijuana. An amended bill passed that limits hemp to university research.

“Anything to get the ball rolling,” says former Nebraska senator Norm Wallman, a 78-year-old, fourth-generation farmer who sponsored the legislation. “You can plant it early in the spring, and it’s tough as the dickens.”

Dweikat says Nebraska has ideal conditions for growing hemp, which requires few pesticides and no herbicides. Driving around the state during a severe drought in 2012, he says the only green patches in the parched countryside were wild hemp plants.

John Lupien, who runs a company that separates hemp fiber from the rest of the plant, has been importing his hemp from Canada but would rather get his hemp from local farmers.

“We’re stuck in the mud,” Lupien says. “There are lots and lots of farmers interested in growing an alternative crop in the rotation. It would break the disease and pest cycles and have huge benefits economically and environmentally.”

The Hemp Industries Association estimates some $573m of goods containing hemp were sold in the United States in 2015, almost all of it imported. These goods included foods, supplements, body care products, clothing, auto parts, insulation and construction materials and medicine.

Farmer and former Nebraska senator Norm Wallman: ‘Anything to get the ball rolling. You can plant it early in the spring, and it’s tough as the dickens.’ Photograph: David Steen Martin

“We can see a multibillion-dollar market in the very near future,” says Eric Steenstra, executive director of the Hemp Industries Association.

Because hemp tends to grow well where corn grows, L Allan Jenkins, a professor of Economics and Agribusiness at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, sees a potential bonanza in the Cornhusker state.

“There’s no reason Nebraska couldn’t be an absolute powerhouse in hemp production,” says Jenkins, who is editing a book on hemp.

Others also tout hemp as the source of a promising medical treatment. A non-psychoactive component of the cannabis plant, cannabidiol or CBD, has been shown to help young patients with intractable seizure disorders and is being investigated as a treatment for schizophrenia, cancer and other diseases.

Deb Palm-Egle, who splits her time between Denver and a 2,500-acre ranch bisected by the Wyoming-Nebraska state line, says she plans to lobby the Nebraska legislature to legalize industrial hemp. A self-described “staunch conservative”, Palm-Egle says she suffers from multiple sclerosis and has experienced first-hand the benefits of medical marijuana.

“I don’t think it’s a partisan issue. I think it’s an ignorance issue,” she says, adding that she’d like to plant about 200 acres on the Nebraska side of her farm next spring.

Thus far, Kentucky has taken the lead in hemp production, followed by Colorado.

“In Nebraska, we are falling farther behind every day,” laments Jenkins.

According to advocates, hemp is as American as apple pie. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams all grew hemp, which was used for paper, rope and cloth. The first flag of the United States, sewn by Betsy Ross, is said to have been made from hemp, and the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper.

‘There’s no reason Nebraska couldn’t be an absolute powerhouse in hemp production.’ Photograph: David Steen Martin

In the 1930s, law enforcement and the media linked marijuana to madness and crime. Congress passed The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which put a heavy tax on farming marijuana and declared “the term ‘marihuana’ means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa,” including stalks, fiber, oil and seeds.

The US Department of Agriculture attempted briefly to revive hemp production during the second world war, when the Japanese cut supplies of hemp from the Philippines and jute from India.

Three-quarters of a century later, farmers grow hemp in 30 countries, producing about 400m pounds, with an estimated 25,000 products derived from it, according to a 2015 report by the Congressional Research Service.

Dweikat says Nebraskans who want hemp seeds have their own ways around the law, foraging wild hemp along country roads while waiting for the laws to change.

“It’s stupid not to grow it,” he adds. “You can’t find a major weakness in growing hemp.”