America’s Most Unusual Marijuana Farms
Marijuana is illegal under federal law, but recreational cannabis is perfectly legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia. That may be less than half of the states that make up the country, but it’s enough to keep cannabis retailers and their contracted growth facilities pretty busy—especially during the pandemic, when demand for good grass has spiked exponentially. In New Jersey alone, greenhouses grew more than double this year than the previous year, selling more than 20,000 pounds of cannabis to retailers in the state. (AD Mag)
Some companies, like New Jersey’s Harmony Dispensary, are turning to unusual sites, including an industrial complex that formerly housed the pharmaceutical giant Merck. It’s since been transformed into a fragrantly thriving marijuana growth hub. A few miles away, a Morris County farm that used to plant and sell holiday-friendly poinsettias, evergreens, and pumpkins is technically still growing flora known to lift people’s spirits—just in a slightly different way. Now, the decades-old farm is growing thousands of medical marijuana plants in the state’s first cannabis-specific greenhouse, ironically enforcing New Jersey’s reputation as the Garden State in a big way.
And with two-thirds of the tristate area (New York and New Jersey) legally dispensing the good stuff, the potential market is estimated to soar beyond $6 billion within five years. In other words, botanically minded entrepreneurs’ dreams are about to come true with seemingly never-ending business opportunities, no matter the dire circumstances, such as global public health crises.
Stone Road’s 57-acre biodynamic farm in Nevada City, California, grows marijuana for eco-conscious consumers.
“We believe that life is better with cannabis, so we build Liberty Cannabis dispensaries and Holistic Industries growth processing facilities in neighborhoods that want and need us to better the community. Part of what we look for when scouting locations for our facilities is a property that has been abandoned or neglected that we can revitalize,” Josh Genderson, CEO of Holistic Industries, suggests. One such dilapidated property that was in desperate need of a facelift was the former bowling alley that Genderson and his team transformed into a sprawling 64,000-square-foot vertically-integrated growth and retail outpost.
These massive growth facilities are sweeping through the world’s more liberal territories at lightning speed, a development every The Big Lebowski fan is celebrating after a painful pandemic without a tightly rolled joint in hand. Finally, retailers and growth farms are catching up, and if supply and demand have a distinct scent, it’s that of marijuana.