The Goldilocks zone

TOOWOOMBA’S temperate climate has long been a drawcard for the Garden City.

Now it’s drawing massive cannabis operations like Asterion and Medibis.

Medibis managing director Angus Chapel said when his company was doing studies and talking about setting up in Queensland, Toowoomba came out in front on energy calculations.

“Because you’re growing in a glasshouse, or even if you were growing indoor, the plant generates a lot of humidity through the photosynthesising effect,” he said.

“There’s natural humidity to deal with as well, and when you do the energy calculation, your single highest cost is controlling that.”

Mr Chapel said places like Brisbane “and all the way along the coast, in the summer season particularly” had too high a humidity to be feasible.

“If you don’t control it properly you end up with mould and if you have mouldy medicine you’re basically throwing it in the bin,” he said.

“When you look at the temperature profiles of Toowoomba over the last 20 years, the peaks aren’t as high and the lows aren’t as low.

“It’s a little bit colder in winter than in Brisbane but like I said, the plant generates heat itself and adding a little bit of heat is cheaper than removing a lot of humidity, basically.”

Medibis is planning to build a more than $180 million medicinal cannabis facility in Toowoomba that will produce 80100 tonnes of the product annually.

Meanwhile Canadian company Asterion is planning to build a $500 million medicinal cannabis farm at Wellcamp.

Both companies also said Toowoomba’s agricultural heritage was a natural fit, with its larger populations of skilled farm workers who could potentially work on the projects, as well as service providers and agribusiness suppliers.

In a recent article for Austrade, Asterion chairman and CEO Van Deventer also said the proximity to Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport and its international export capability was also crucial, with Asterion hoping to export $1-2 billion of product annually.