Established pot grower plans to add outdoor crop
Canada’s first crop of commercially grown outdoor cannabis could sprout from the ground of a former organic farm in Southwestern Ontario this year. Marijuana producer 48North has applied for an outdoor cultivation licence — the only cannabis company to do so since the government approved outdoor growing in the summer — to plant marijuana on its 40-hectare property outside of Brantford in one of the nation’s richest farm belts. Company co-chief executive Jeannette VanderMarel, who hails from a family of apple producers, says she’s drawing on her agricultural background for the endeavour.
“Basically, I’m planning this like an orchard,” she said, adding work on the operation is well underway while the company awaits approval from Health Canada.
“I know that I need to work the ground this fall in order to have it ready for spring planting.” The outdoor operation would yield 40,000 kilograms of cannabis a year, VanderMarel said. By comparison, 48North’s 4,230-square-metre indoor site in Brantford, which includes warehouse operations, harvests 1,000 kg a year and its 3,780-square-metre Kirkland Lake facility produces around 2,500 kg a year.
The outdoor crop would be used to make cannabis extracts, VanderMarel said.
“It’s a huge volume that has to be processed all at once. The most efficient way to do that … is to process it into oil,” she said. “But the quality of outdoor grown versus greenhouse is basically the same.” After the government announced it was lifting the ban on outdoor growing, some of the largest licensed producers pushed back, raising concerns about such issues as product security and cross-contamination from other crops.
The head of a cannabis industry association echoed those concerns, but says outdoor cannabis will be an important part of a diversified supply mix. “Outdoor will be a very viable and successful part of our cannabis mix in Canada,” said Allan Rewak of the Cannabis Council of Canada, an umbrella group representing some of the country’s largest pot producers, including Canopy, Tilray and Aurora.
“It will never replace indoor and greenhouse growing entirely, but it will be a part of a constellation of different production methods that all feed toward one common goal: growing great cannabis consistently and in the volumes that Canadians need.”