MULTI-MILLION POT SHOT
MEDICAL MARIJUANA HOPE: ‘Aquaponics’ business has plans for world-class product
A GEELONG ‘aquaponics’ cannabis farm, which uses fish alongside plants to create high-grade medical marijuana, has the potential to o become a multimillion-dollar business.
Medigrowth Australia is trialling the system, which if viable, could be up and running in 18 months.
MEDICINAL cannabis is set to be grown in an innovative aquaponics venture being established in Geelong.
Medigrowth Australia is planning to use the chemicalfree technique that involves fish and plants working together in a fully-controlled environment to produce what it says will be medical cannabis in its purest form.
If the company can prove the cultivation technique is commercially viable, it plans to integrate it into a world-class medicinal cannabis cultivation, research and manufacturing facility that it hopes to have fully operational in Geelong within 18 months.
The first phase of the research plan involves a recently acquired aquaponics greenhouse, initially to undertake pilot tests growing hemp and low THC cannabis.
Medigrowth Australia cofounder Adam Guskich said the company was engaged in a range of regulatory and licensing conversations as it started to roll out its plans.
He said the company was collaborating with Deakin University and had recently bought the aquaculture assets of another start-up that had also been working with the university.
“We see a great opportunity for a very long-term collaboration with the university in everything from plant science to involving the health faculty,” Mr Guskich said.
The cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes was legalised in Australia in 2016 and the drug is now available under prescription to relieve suffering in patients with chronic or terminal illnesses and for conditions such as epilepsy where traditional medicine might not be as effective.
Mr Guskich said medicinal cannabis grown though aquaponics produced the purest form of the plant and the fact it had no added chemicals was important to people facing complicated medical conditions such as cancers.
“We intend to produce a product for people with already compromised immune systems, so it must be pure, safe and reliable.” he said.
He said the first phase of the business was to determine if the aquaponics facility could produce crop yields that were commercially sustainable.
The second phase would see development of larger-scale commercial operation involving cultivation through to manufacture. Projected to employ up to 30 people, it is expected to become fully operational in 2021.
Co-founder Todd McClellan said the company was eyeing a long-term future in the region and was looking forward to engaging industry across medtech, horticulture, academia and manufacturing as part of its development.
Medigrowth Australia is also developing relationships with cultivation partners who do not intend to have manufacturing capacity. It offers to provide the extraction, lab testing and manufacturing services for cultivation partners.