People gathered at the historic Blennerhassett Hotel, on Friday, to educate themselves about a certain type of crop.

The goal is to educate people about farming the crop, hemp.

An application workshop was set up for cooperative members to learn how to farm hemp.

Industrial hemp is a distant cousin to marijuana.

It is grown to make textiles, building materials, and food.

Robby Kerr, communications director, said, "It uses very little amounts of water to grow compared to cotton, soy bean, and corn.

Corn and soy bean is used to make ethanol.

Hemp is more cellulose so it can actually make more ethanol per unit of material while using less water to grow, and while avoiding increasing the food market for corn and soy bean.

It also conducts a process called Phytoremediation.

It cleans pollutants out of the terrain that it's grown in."

To learn more about the use of hemp you can click on the Hot Button.