California was once the ‘lettuce belt’ of the nation due to its moderate climate. Nowadays, thanks to tunnel farming it no longer enjoys the monopoly. Many dilapidated lettuce greenhouses litter the ‘salad bowl’. Some have turned to growing cut flowers, but it seems the residents of the Golden State consume even less of these.
Quite fortuitously, marijuana plants and lettuces both enjoy a warm moist environment. Consequently, marijuana growers are forsaking sheds in plots for marijuana tunnels according to New York Times. This has brought new hope for isolated communities. Their sons and daughters once tended carnations and raspberries in flowerpots. Now they are happily occupied trimming leaves away from freshly harvested pot in the making
“California is destined to do with cannabis what we’ve done with every other fruit and vegetable,” Steve DeAngelo of Harborside Farms believes. “And that’s to take half of the national market.” He had better be right. His company invested in a 40-acre farm sprinkled with greenhouses like mushrooms and adding a heady aroma to the air.
This shift to large-scale marihuana farming flies in the face of a sterner approach from the Trump administration. If anything, it is making the point that there are jobs for the making from marijuana. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. The Grid believes that fewer than 15% of the national consumer spend contributes to taxes.
Almost all the 85% comes from non-commercial small farmers. For a variety of reasons, they are not coming in from the cold in large numbers. This puts them beyond the reach of fair-trade rules, and anti-monopoly legislation. Meanwhile the big corporates have an almost free rein to go their own way.
However, there is hope in the making as a countermovement emerges. Chairperson of the California Growers Association Tawnie Logan told New York Times, “We are watching the industrialization of commercial cannabis. For them, the name of the game is the profit margin” but we are “fighting for the little guy.”
As the industry comes out the shadows, it is time for pending legislation to put a cap on marijuana farm size. Maximillian Mikalonis, a former legislative aide in Sacramento who helped write California’s medical cannabis regulations summed it up nicely for us.
“It is a critical moment,” he says, “a defining moment for the future of the industry in California. The choice is between a marketplace for small and boutique operators who have been doing this for generations – or domination by the forces of agribusiness.”