The slender, 2m-high plants in Martin Pllumbi's field in northern Albania could bring either a profit or a prison sentence, depending on the results of a chemical analysis being carried out in Italy.

As the head of the local farmers' association and co-ordinator of a project funded by Partnership for Growth, a UK-based charity, Mr Pllumbi encouraged other subsistence farmers in the impoverished Shkrel valley to plant industrial hemp as a cash crop.