Doug Fine’s American Hemp Farmer

Set for National Distribution

To Public Media Stations in March

Award-Winning Film Inks Multi-Year Licensing Deal

with the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA).

(LOS ANGELES) In the last six months, filmmaker and goat rancher Doug Fine has gone from wildfire evacuee to public television distribution. After years in production and filming in remote hemp fields, and finding success on the festival circuit, Fine’s documentary American Hemp Farmer has been harvested for distribution by the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) to air on PBS networks beginning March 14. The three-year deal includes syndicated to all 350 U.S. public media outlets, as well as streaming availability on the PBS app and PBS.org, plus video-on-demand at DougFine.com.  

The American Hemp Farmer film, directed by Fine and based on his best-selling book of the same name, has all of the adventure, comedy, and optimism of the author/filmmaker’s global-travels and writings. The documentary features Fine visiting hemp experts in Oregon and Vermont, and planting organic hemp with a Tribal farm enterprise on Rosebud Sioux land. The hemp and regenerative living expert then goes back in time at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate to learn traditional methods and hand-harvest hemp with a very sharp scythe while dressed in Colonial-style hemp clothes.  

Most importantly, American Hemp Farmer finds Fine, with his wisdom and trademark slapstick mishaps, sharing his hard-won regenerative hemp farming expertise while making a compelling case: Hemp can help mitigate climate change and make extreme environment and weather conditions less severe. It can also protect and fortify our soil, and ensure the future viability of farmland while helping secure the success of American farmers and our food supply. The film also teaches us all that the regenerative lifestyle—mindful, responsible living—is doable for everyone even in this busy, digital age.  

In addition to scoring distribution and syndication through NETA, American Hemp Farmer has earned awards on the film festival circuit. These include Best New Mexico Documentary at the Santa Fe Film Festival (the doc’s world premiere) and Audience Choice at last October’s Silver City Film Festival. The film was also an official selection at the Las Cruces International Film Festival in April. These are strong signs that Fine’s message has an audience.  

“We’re getting these positive and often emotional responses at festival Q and As,” says the film’s co-Executive Producer Barry Gordon. “And now we finally have an answer to the question folks keep asking: ‘where can we see American Hemp Farmer?’ We’re grateful for this nationwide public television lift-off for the optimistic messaging in the film. It’s a really wild, fun watch – Doug’s family is on the run from wildfires and for the farmers they meet, failure is not an option.”  

American Hemp Farmer explores examples of action by showcasing three faming families’ quest for food security and encourages viewers to do what they can toward helping ensure Earth’s long-term health. “Restoring and building fertile and healthy soil is crucial. And it can be simple and fun” says Fine, a one-time suburbanite back when Madonna was like a Virgin. “Obviously not everyone can become a full-time farmer, but collectively, small efforts can lead to big change. Start a garden, or work in community gardens. Shop locally and sustainably.”  

Fine says it’s equally crucial that we all make life choices that keep the next generations in mind. “Everyone is affected by climate change, extreme weather, wildfires, and floods,” says Fine, who knows first-hand how deeply affecting the dangerous situation is after wildfires threatened his Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico three times in the past six years.  

Fine notes, “during final editing for American Hemp Farmer, my family and I became climate refugees for nine days. We never ran out of kombucha, but we did have to find temporary homes for the goats and chickens very quickly before we evacuated. That wasn’t a relaxing period, and more than ever it made me really hope this film’s messaging gets out to the world. This is happening to everyone now. We are in this together. And this film offers solutions.”     “None of us would be here today,” Fine says, “if not for what is today called ‘the regenerative lifestyle’—and it’s only recently that humanity stopped living that way.” So Fine hopes that we can reactivate that “instinctive regenerative awareness” and start working together to ensure that future generations have a habitable planet. Experienced, grounded, and a keen wit, Fine is the right guy to shepherd us through the conversion.  

As American Hemp Farmer premieres on public television stations, Doug Fine is available for interviews and further speaking engagements this year and in 2026. A website of Fine’s print and radio journalism, United Nations testimony, television appearances and TED Talk is at dougfine.com. Follow him on Instagram at @organiccowboy.  

A Southwest-based author whose books Willie Nelson describes as “a blueprint for the America of the future,” Doug Fine is the author of six books including American Hemp Farmer (2020, Chelsea Green Publishing) and the Boston Globe Bestseller, Farewell, My Subaru (Penguin/Random House 2009). His wild goat-wrangling stories and optimistic persona have led to media appearances (Conan, The Tonight Show, BBC, CNN) as well as a TED Talk (TEDxABQ) and testimony before the United Nations on the right-to-farm. In his speaking events including previous appearances at SXSW, Town Hall Seattle, National Geographic Heroes of the Planet Series, and dozens of universities, Fine further spreads the word about the joys and pitfalls of sustainable living.  

He has cultivated superfoods (including hemp since its 2018 legalization) for more than a decade and taught his methods of cultivation and seed building at Vermont’s Sterling College and online at DougFine.com. His hemp seeds have been used to clean contaminated soil in a New Mexico University study. Fine’s life and work has been covered in Smithsonian, and he has reported from five continents for NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times Magazine and other platforms. The Washington Post says, “Fine is a storyteller in the mold of Douglas Adams.”  

Fine, who is convinced that “being outside in a farm or garden is the most fun you can have as a job,” homeschools his children alongside his wife. With his labor-of-love American Hemp Farmer  continuing to reach larger audiences, Fine is already jamming on developing his next projects, including Fine hosting a regenerative living travel show.  

About NETA

The National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) is a professional association representing more than 300 member stations in nearly every state, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. For more information, visit netaonline.org.  

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