National Post (National Edition)
Forbidden fruit goes organic from California to Uruguay
WORLD EXPANSION
Consumers are already paying more for organic coffee, organic strawberries and clothing made with organic fibres. Why not organic cannabis?
That's the thinking of a growing number of producers around the globe looking for a way to distinguish themselves in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
“We believe that in five years everything is going to trend toward organic,” said Boreal Uruguay Chairman Gonzalo Aguiar, whose firm recently opened one of Latin America's largest cannabis drying facilities. Organic hemp flowers high in CBD already fetch US$600,000 to US$800,000 per metric ton in Europe. That's a 30 per cent premium over regular flowers, he said, but growers must be able to document every step — from seed through the drying process.
While information on the market for organic marijuana is scarce, overall demand for cannabis is expected to surge through the middle of the next decade as more countries loosen their drug laws. BDSA, an industry research firm, sees global legal cannabis sales more than tripling from last year to US$46.6 billion in 2025.
In Uruguay, cannabis producers can obtain certification from specialists such as Argentina-based Organizacion Internacional Agropecuaria SA. The nation's seed agency, Inase, also plans to offer organic certification during the first half of next year.
In the U.S., there's a significant hurdle: Products can only be marketed “organic” if they are certified by the Department of Agriculture. But since cannabis is illegal at the federal level, there's no way cannabis producers can officially be graded as organic, said Cooper Ashley, a data analyst at cannabis data provider Headset.
Instead, a third-party organization called “Clean Green” is offering its own certification, which is similar to what the USDA calls organic. Although it's not officially comparable, “we can use their certifications to identify brands that have jumped through significant hoops in order to market themselves as `Clean Green Certified,'” Ashley said, citing brands like Raw Garden, Dixie Elixirs and 48North.
Brother David's, a not-forprofit cannabis producer run by David Bronner, the head of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, is also trying to bridge the certification void cannabis faces in the U.S. Dr. Bronner's is launching a special cannabis-scented soap to help expand a certification program to make it a nationwide standard.
The plan, known as Sun + Earth Certified, aims to verify that cannabis products are pesticide-free and adhere to labour and environmental standards on par with the USDA's grades for food. “It's a way of giving small-scale farmers more power,” Bronner said.
In Uruguay, which is one of the world's most established export markets for cannabis, local grower Colfores plans to obtain organic certification from Inase for its seeds for CBD-rich hemp, which it expects to sell next year to medical cannabis producers in Canada, Germany, Israel and Switzerland, according to chief executive Veronica Quintela. The seeds are expected to fetch a higher price than non-organic ones.