From breeding and cultivation to testing and delivery, the cannabis blockchain captures a digital snapshot of every major step of production, distribution and sale, locking them into an immutable digital ledger. By leaving a transparent data trail that originates at the farm and ends with the buyer, the openly visible platform promises clear accountability of sourcing and product safety, as well as fair compensation and due credit.

Still, for a community with a long history of operating in the shadows, the budding technology has drawn its share of skeptics. Greater transparency, however, is paramount to protecting the livelihood of small-scale, legacy cultivators, says Kennedy, as many get priced out of a crowded market—one increasingly dominated by large and, at times, unscrupulous players. Opening the books boosts the integrity of small batch producers, he adds, and keeps them better connected to aficionados who appreciate their craft.

“Most deals are done with a handshake and loose contract,” adds Kennedy. “This sets everything in stone”—for all to see.

An open ledger

With supply chains becoming ever more complex, tracking the source and path of agricultural products is essential to food safety and quality. Yet, companies can be hard-pressed to trace, say, lettuce in a salad mix back to a specific farm, while farmers may be just as unclear about where their crops end up. Consumers also take a leap of faith when buying products that carry nebulous claims of being sustainably grown, ethically sourced or humanely raised—all of which can cast doubt on the true appellation of San Marzano tomatoes or who really benefits from fair trade coffee.

Blockchain technology can keep tabs on any number of defined points along the supply chain, with a time-stamped certificate capturing everything from crop genetics and field location to compliance history and packaging details. At each stage, users upload an indelible block of information to a decentralized ledger, one mirrored across a network of computers, with easy and speedy access.

The open-source system is fundamentally democratic, says Daniela Barbosa, executive director of the Hyperledger Foundation. As an umbrella project of the non-profit Linux Foundation, the organization supports and coordinates the collaborative development of blockchain technology. Although user communities and enterprises can develop distinct platforms, there’s no single company driving its development, she explains in an email, and “the code is there for anyone to use and adapt.”

Absent a centralized certificate authority and a singular database, all data are verified through consensus mechanisms, or rules and protocols that validate each transaction, which reduces the risk of cyberattacks and insider fraud. Some validation methods require heavy computation—Bitcoin, a digital currency built on blockchain technology, is notoriously energy-intensive in this regard—but those used in supply chains are much lighter on the grid, says Barbosa.

By scanning QR codes or other tags with smartphones, most food producers, sellers and buyers can readily tap into an established blockchain platform. The low technical and economic bar “wrings out costs,” she notes, “and helps make issues such as ethical and sustainable sourcing real.”

Nevertheless, even the best technology can’t absolutely guarantee that crops weren’t grown on razed rainforests or harvested with child labor. While the blockchain adds transparency to the process, every step including tagging, sensors and inspections needs to be well designed and implemented, says Barbosa. “Garbage in means garbage out,” she adds; in other words, the quality of output depends on the structure of the input.

A full seed-to-sale account

The recent spread of legal cannabis throughout pockets of the U.S. elicited high hopes for bolstering the supply of high-grade weed. Yet, amid skyrocketing demand—in 2020, nationwide sales increased by 67 percent—the field has become flooded with greater numbers of large-scale producers, resulting in a market glut and a collapse in wholesale prices, with little oversight of quality standards.

In California, which produces nearly 60 percent of the nation’s total yield, the state’s excessive taxes and regulations have hit small-scale cannabis farmers particularly hard, including industry veterans in the fertile Emerald Triangle of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino counties. Many of the area’s 20,000 estimated growers have operated in this remote Northern California region for decades—either under the radar or under Proposition 215, a somewhat vague law that legalized medical cannabis in the state in 1996—but have made significant investments to bring their business completely above board since full legalization in 2016.

These legacy farmers have long set the benchmark for quality, says EMTRI’s Kennedy. “These guys are producing sun-and-earth grown, medicinal grade cannabis” sustainably, in small batches. “We want to keep them at the top of the food chain,” he says.

Doc Ray has been breeding and cultivating medical cannabis strains for nearly 50 years. (Photo courtesy of Doc Ray)

Along with most other states where cannabis is legal, California relies on Marijuana Enforcement Tracking Reporting Compliance (METRC), a government-contracted enterprise system, to monitor and regulate various aspects of production, distribution and sales. METRC maintains records such as the Certificate of Analysis (COA), the official test results of a given harvest that includes cannabinoid content and any presence of pesticide, herbicide and toxin residues. 

However, there’s little transparency built into the centralized platform, says Kennedy. With hazy quarantine periods for COA testing, no open access to records and data entered manually, the system leaves huge room for error, and even manipulation. The industry lacks standards for differentiating between medical and recreational strains or indoor and sun-grown products, he adds, creating challenges in verifying the value, authenticity or even the shelf-life of artisanal cannabis.

“We want farmers to maximize on their grow methods, on their IP [intellectual property],” says Kennedy. Legacy growers tend to “really care about the land,” relying on the sun and rich soil to cultivate a single annual harvest. And over the years, many have developed specialized varietals, fine-tuning aroma and flavor as well as the chemical profiles responsible for the psychoactive and therapeutic properties of cannabis.

These heirloom strains, which include legendary buds such as Blue Skunk and Girl Scout Cookies, “represent the extensive handiwork of breeders,” says Jed Davis, farmer and owner of Mendocino Clone Company, a commercial nursery supplying cloned, or propagated, cannabis seedlings. Yet those breeders have few measures in staking their claim, he says. “Once you give [the plant] to someone else to grow, that person can easily change the name,” take credit for the cultivar or cross-breed it into a new varietal. Consumers are often in the dark about what they’re truly smoking, he adds, noting that the industry is rife with questionable farming methods, product potency and safety issues.

Cannabis seedlings. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Earlier this year, Davis started tracking his seedlings on the blockchain. Each plant receives a unique block identity that stores its history accessible via a tagged QR code, starting with its origin and genetic heritage. As it moves along the chain of custody, growers add timestamped documentation of farm and location, a timeline of inputs, planting and harvest dates and even photographs. By the time it reaches the dispensary, a customer can pull up a bud’s full profile, including COA results, organic certification and shelf life, all via a simple scan.

In addition to providing a full seed-to-sale account, the secure open ledger “guarantees the customer that they know what they’re buying, where it came from and how it’s been cultivated,” says Davis. The assurance also helps build brand loyalty, he notes, while the ability for end users to leave reviews on the platform gives the farmer a feedback loop.

Growers also receive a financial incentive to join the blockchain via EMTRI’s own cryptocurrency. Similar to receiving company equity for each transaction, the virtual reward could provide a nest egg as well as a hedge against crop damage and other unforeseen circumstances. (Unlike cannabis farmed indoors, sun-grown crops are much more costly to insure; the lack of federal recognition also makes cannabis ineligible for U.S. assistance programs.)

Ultimately, the onus of honestly capturing the various steps falls on the individual players, says Davis. Although certain attestations can be collaborated with COA results, he sees an open ledger encouraging public accountability. “A lot of [small-scale] cultivators take a lot of pride in their craft,” he adds, and cherish their reputation as responsible farmers. “And that’s what a lot of customers really want to see.”

Building the chain of trust

Ironically, the wide-open nature of the platform may be off-putting to those in the field. “This community’s already leery of all that kind of stuff,” says Doc Ray, founder of Doc Ray Genetics, who still goes by his nickname—a common practice in the days before legalization. The self-professed old-timer has been breeding and cultivating medical cannabis strains for nearly 50 years, and was one of the first to openly farm cannabis under Prop 215.

Despite the seemingly straightforward and secure nature of the blockchain, many are wary of registering personal information tied to an industry with no federal recognition. And it’s no wonder, says Ray, recalling the era of federal raids on pot farms. “We’re the ones that have been handcuffed, had our kids displaced and our possessions taken from us.” (Although users can operate anonymously or under an account name, they still need to register an account on the platform; anti-money laundering regulations further require identity verification when handling cryptocurrency.)

Doc Ray, a self-professed old-timer, is an advocate of IP protection in the cannabis industry. (Photo courtesy of Doc Ray)

Ray holds several genetic patents on his cultivars (developed for his fellow veterans, some hold cult status for providing relief from post-traumatic stress, pain and insomnia) and is an ardent advocate of IP protection. And while he believes that the transparent nature of the blockchain is a valuable tool for staking public claims, the chain of trust, he adds, “is only as good as the operators on both sides of the coin.”

Patent infringement runs rampant these days, says Ray. “Even though we used to be the outlaws, we at least had a code of honor and rules that we lived by.” The boom in legalized recreational cannabis has emboldened many unscrupulous players, and most small-scale farmers lack the resources to go after the law breakers. “It’s just a brutal time right now for the craft cannabis industry,” he adds.

Regardless, there’s strength in unity, says EMTRI’s Kennedy. To date, the startup has onboarded seven farmers and has 10 more in the pipeline, and supplies a growing number of distributors throughout California. Linking more farmers to the blockchain, he adds, helps build a network of resilience against market forces and regulatory burdens. “It’s a completely new way of cultivating relationships.”

This story is part of ‘Phonies, Fakes and Food Fraud’, a special Modern Farmer series. See the full series here.

The post Can the Blockchain Clear the Smoke for Cannabis? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Not only do Millennials and Gen Z-ers widely support marijuana legalization, but they also engage more with issues surrounding the climate crisis. With sales of legal cannabis expected to more than double by 2030, producers of the nation’s sixth-most valuable crop have a problem: Cannabis has a substantial environmental footprint. 

Research on the sustainability of cannabis cultivation, although nascent because of its illegal federal status, indicates an array of environmental impacts. Growing cannabis requires massive water and energy resources while contributing to air, land and water pollution and soil damage. Corwin is part of a small but growing group of farmers working to transform the least green parts of the industry into more sustainable and profitable practices.

Photography courtesy of Stone Road Farms.

Turning grass blue

Cannabis is a water-intensive crop. Grown indoors or in the wild, each plant requires between five and six gallons of water per day—nearly twice that of other commodity crops. In California, irrigated agriculture already accounts for 70 percent to 80 percent of all water consumption. 

Inside Stone Road’s half-acre of greenhouses, says Corwin, the plants require much less than five gallons of water per week because they’re small, thanks to their two- to three-month lifecycle. The outdoor plants grown on his 57-acre outdoor farm, however, grow for four to six months and require much more water “because they’re massive.”

Unlike most cannabis operations, Stone Road doesn’t use municipal or stream water, instead irrigating its indoor and outdoor plants from two wells that draw from an underground aquifer. This geologically unique system preserves nearby aquatic ecosystems and ensures that Stone Road has ample supplies, even during droughts. 

Stone Road’s sustainable infrastructure stands in stark contrast to the water stolen by unlicensed cannabis operations across the Golden State. In San Bernadino County alone, a reported 4,000 acre-feet of water was stolen in 2021—enough to submerge 4,000 football stadiums in a foot of water.

Water woes aren’t just an issue for California farmers; Colorado cannabis growers face an even drier future. Home to the worst conditions in the West, more than half of the state is in some level of drought, with 86 percent of the water supply already dedicated to agriculture. 

Those numbers don’t concern Andrew Mahon, head of cultivation at Veritas in Denver. “We built our own irrigation system to fit the style of growing we do,” he says. Seasoned cultivation staff, not a digital sensor, determine the precise amount of moisture the plants need. 

Consequently, the 20,000 square feet of grow space at Veritas uses significantly less water than the average indoor cannabis farm—half to one gallon a day during flowering and just 100 to 200 millilitres a day during the vegetation stage, says Mahon. 

Water-conscious techniques like these don’t just prevent overwatering. They can also stem the flow of runoff, which can tax local water treatment systems. That’s because many cannabis operations apply insecticides, acaricides, fungicides and plant growth regulators that can disrupt habitats of fish, amphibians and rare carnivores. 

While Mahon could use EPA-registered pesticides, he says he primarily chooses minimum-risk pesticides “typically composed of essential oils like rosemary oil [and] thyme oil.” Corwin eschews chemicals altogether, instead opting for “an army of predator mites, ladybugs and beneficial fungi” to deter other pests, stave off mold and keep the farm’s water supply clean.

LED growlights at Veritas Fine Cannabis. Photography courtesy of Veritas.

Cooling down energy use

Indoor grow houses allow farmers to govern the lifecycle of cannabis using artificial lighting and climate control, which enables rapid turnaround for sometimes dozens of harvests each year. But with that speed comes massive greenhouse gas emissions from lighting, heating, cooling and dehumidification—powered mostly by petrochemicals. 

“The elephant in the room,” says Mahon, “is LED lighting.” For years, the industry has relied on high-intensity discharge lamps such as metal halides and high-pressure sodium lights (HSPs), fixtures considered efficient by 1960s and 1970s standards. Compared to HSPs, light-emitting diodes provide more light, require very little energy to run and emit far less heat, substantially reducing the demand for cooling and the energy in general required to produce cannabis.

Dion Foley, chief of operations at Koala Green Development in Adelanto, California, prefers the new tech. “LEDs are insanely more energy efficient,” he says. Koala Green Development has been growing with LEDs since 2018, and its 15,000 square feet of grow space costs $20,000 per month to power. Similarly sized facilities not growing with LEDs, says Foley, spend between $50,000 and $60,000.

For some growers, the cutting edge of sustainability in cannabis has moved toward energy generation. At Stone Road, on-site solar panels provide enough power to run the supplemental LED lighting in the greenhouses. Because the sides can be opened manually to cool the plants and prevent mold, there’s no need for HVAC or dehumidifying, says Corwin. 

Growing under LEDs also allows for much higher yields each harvest, “meaning that grows will not have to be as large in the future and, therefore, the footprint of the industry will decrease over time,” says Mahon.

While Veritas has not fully switched to LEDs, Mahon says the company has plans to upgrade in the near future. In the meantime, more than a quarter of Colorado’s energy currently comes from wind and solar, and 2022 was the first year that renewables generated more energy than coal and nuclear power. As the grid continues to decarbonize and LEDs become the industry standard, the emissions of indoor cannabis cultivation will continue to shrink. 

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LED growlights at Koala Green Development. Photography courtesy of Koala Green Development.

Pot’s pernicious plastics

Zipper bags, rigid “doob tubes,” spent vape cartridges and other plastic pollution generated by marijuana packaging also contribute to the global plastic crisis, although it’s unclear how much of an impact cannabis packaging has on an already massive problem . A jaw-dropping 363 billion pounds of plastics choke the world’s oceans, eventually finding their way into the human food chain. Single-use plastics also take hundreds of years to decompose, releasing harmful methane and ethylene gasses as they do. 

A daily surfer, Corwin says he can’t imagine swimming into a piece of plastic packaging that his company had created, which is why Stone Road’s current packaging is made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials and will soon be 100 percent plastic-free.

Stone Road’s plastic-free packaging. Photography courtesy of Stone Road Farms

Yet plastic remains the most popular packaging material in the industry. Of the limited number of options that meet the child safety regulations, plastic is the most economically priced, says Foley. A glass jar, for example, can cost $1.50, whereas a Mylar bag can cost as little as $0.20.

When opting for plastic over glass, Foley says an established company could save between $10,000 and $75,000 a year, depending on the number of accounts. That might not seem like a lot of money in the context of a $37-billion industry; but, he says, “cannabis companies are operating on extremely tight margins in the current struggling cannabis market. 

“You’d charge a dispensary somewhere between $2.50 and $5 more per eighth (3.5 grams) for jarred cannabis,” he continues, with the cost of sustainable packaging passed on to consumers. That poses a problem for producers in a market increasingly flooded with product, driving down prices for both legal and illegal cannabis. Corwin says this has led consumers to prioritize “value over everything.”

Foley swore up and down he’d never sell cannabis in plastic until the price of doing business pushed his hand. Many farmers simply “can’t justify doing something that’s good for the environment when it costs more,” he says. 

Without financial incentives to encourage more eco-friendly practices, Foley fears many smaller-scale operations won’t have the working capital to make the sustainable switch. To survive the second decade of recreational legalization, cannabis farmers will have to be as resilient as the plants they cultivate.

The post Growing Green: Cannabis Farmers Tackle Sustainability appeared first on Modern Farmer.

But the annual influx of seasonal cannabis farm workers is a thing of the past. Known locally as “trim-migrants,” crowds of energetic young folks would pass through each year to clip buds from the plants, once so prolific in the area’s single-crop gardens. 

Another way to visualize the change to “the ridge”—as the area between the middle and south fork of the Yuba River is known—is via Google Maps or a real-estate site such as Trulia. Zoom in using the satellite view to find an array of garden beds and greenhouses tucked back in the woods; search available properties and note all those advertising that the place comes with a “complete garden infrastructure.”

This is the fallout of California’s Proposition 64. In November 2016, the state legalized the growth and regulated sale of marijuana. And while it seemed to present an opportunity for the silent backbone of this and many other local economies across California, the actual effects of the regulation presented a much different cautionary tale.

In the fall of 2022, Nevada County, which stretches from California’s central valley to the state border with Nevada, counted fewer than 20 canopy acres of cannabis growing across 112 assigned permits. Darlene Markey, owner of Sweetland Garden Mercantile, knew of 25 local growers who registered with the county and tried to make a living growing and selling legal cannabis; today, she can think of only four who are actively growing and selling product. Those who kept their business on the black markets haven’t fared any better, she says.

According to the dozen or so growers I spoke with for this story, the new regulations, not to mention the plummeting prices from the commercial grow operations, have effectively boxed them out. The government has implemented a host of tests for THC potency and pesticides that growers find both arduous and often capricious. Even the building codes seemed targeted at keeping black market growers from making the transition to legality; all buildings on a grow property have to be fully permitted. While this is a standard requirement for any legal business, growers had been keeping their operation under the radar; to comply with the new regulations meant a sudden investment of big dollars. 

“I was excited at the beginning,” says Markey. “I thought a lot of these guys can finally have legal jobs. But it just backfired on everybody.”

Sweetland Garden Mercantile. Photography by Caleb Garling.

Ridge life

Growing pot on the ridge, an area I’ve called home since 2020, dates back to at least the 1960s, when those homesteaders looking to escape city life took an interest in the psychoactive plant.  Cultivating fruits and veggies in the Sierra Foothills comes with numerous environmental challenges—late frosts, blights, armies of deer and gophers—but the copious summer sun and font of springs and creeks meant the weed, so to speak, was a relatively easy crop. 

But in the early 1990s, the area started to see gardens move into heavier production levels. Growers didn’t yet have the legal cover of medicinal use and had to work beneath the canopy in complete secrecy. But the payoff was high. A pound of dried marijuana, which can be harvested from a plant or two, could sell for upwards of $6,000—big dollars anywhere, but especially for a rural area dependent on the ups and downs of mining, logging and ranching.

Pat, who spent 15 years as a grower on the ridge, and like the other former growers in this story elected to use a pseudonym in order to protect his employment opportunities, calls the early ’90s on the ridge a “very risky outlaw time” when “people had to grow a lot of plants for modest yield.”  

Then, in 1996, California legalized medicinal-use marijuana. Finding a doctor who could write a “prescription” to legitimize a grow was trivial, and by the early 2000s, word was out that there was money to be made in them hills. The area soon flooded with operations cultivating their allocated six plants. 

“The county had a different feeling then,” says Pat. “We would take our trim crews out for end-of-year celebrations and fill up restaurants. It was loose and free and even though the old guard curmudgeons would rail about pot publicly—it did attract some bad energy—they knew it was a golden goose.”

The money flowed not just for the local economy but for the seasonal workers. Trim-migrants skilled with a pair of scissors—there is a technique to cutting away the buds properly—could make up to $1,000 in a day. Yet the vibe was much less migrant working and far more party or Burning Man. The average trim-migrant tended to be young, free-wheeling, twenty- and thirty-somethings, from the US, Europe, Israel and affluent parts of Central and South America, using the earnings as a launching pad for more adventures abroad.

“I could make in two weeks what I’d spend in a year,” a former trim-migrant using the name “Conway” told me.

Conway eventually used the earnings to start his own grow operation. He and his crews would spend blistering summer afternoons agonizing over soil quality, staking the plants, catching pests, fixing irrigation systems and all the other ins and out of maximizing the plants’ yields—and then blow off steam at night, post up along the banks of the Yuba River for a swim or to plan their next trip. 

“I saw so many people attached to the lifestyle of growing,” says Conway, “despite the market.”

Preparing for harvest season at Hill Craft Farms. Photography courtesy of @hill_craft_farmsnc

Not that easy

The picture presents as a kind of libertarian, Wild West fun—and to many it was—but there were consequences. Most growers had stories of break-ins, robberies and plants being ripped off; there is the infamous tale of a kidnapping and deadly car chase down Highway 49. I had heard rumors of Mafia henchmen and cartels, and while such characters probably did get involved downstream, no one I spoke with could corroborate the idea they were running around causing problems on the ridge. 

“It was all decentralized and under the radar,” says Pat. “So, the big gangs and the mob didn’t have any central pressure point where they could extort money or lean on people.”

Law enforcement had a similar problem, but it was more active in tackling it. Even though grow operations were legal in the eyes of the state, federal law enforcement—whose laws supersede the state, according to the US Constitution—would spread through the hills (often with a supportive nod from the county) and arrest growers for their possession and intent to distribute a Schedule 1 substance. 

“People we knew went down every year,” says Pat. “Either in raids or in selling and transporting. The county and the feds were aggressive and relentless. It was a target-rich environment. I spent a while on my knees in the driveway with an AR15 to my head. [Law enforcement] loved doing that kind of stuff.”

Photography courtesy of @hill_craft_farmsnc

Seed the light

The bottom dropping out on cannabis growing wasn’t entirely due to legalization; the way cannabis was grown also went through a seismic shift. Light deprivation—or “light dep”—is the practice of planting in the winter months, as opposed to May and June, and allowing the plant to grow only for a short window of time, perhaps eight weeks. Growers then simulate shorter days—in other words, they simulate fall—by shielding the plant from the sun and induce the plant to flower early. (The cannabis flower is what’s harvested and smoked.)

This drastically changed the economics of selling. Typically, the market flooded with supply during the fall harvest. As such, prices tended to be at their lowest. But if a grower was “smart or able,” as a former grower using the name “Paul” put it to me, they held onto their product until the winter or spring, and sold when prices had come back up due to the dwindling supply. Conway, for instance, would bury his harvest in the woods for months until he was ready to sell.

But because light dep didn’t need the full summer to grow, cannabis began flooding the market in the off-months. With less scarcity, the bounceback in price weakened and the price curve flattened. In addition, says Paul, connoisseurs of marijuana, especially those in the club scenes, started to prefer light-dep weed over that grown in natural cycles.

“Yeah,” Conway grumbles when I ask how the technique changed business, “light dep fucked things up.” Essentially, he says, “People became addicted to freshness.”

What’s next

Many of the growers I spoke with have taken the change like any other in life; they’ve returned to their previous vocations as yoga instructors, builders, timber fellers and herbalists. Pat returned to his work as a music technician, Paul as a lawyer; Conway now sells solar energy systems.

Here and there, I did encounter some resentment among former growers towards the lack of public outcry for their cause. Despite the fact so many Californians and Americans abide or consume marijuana, there’s a comeuppance vibe many of them encounter when describing their story. “We were treated like criminals,” a grower told me. 

There’s also overwhelming frustration with the county and state. According to growers, county planners and legislators made appearances of taking their transition to legality into consideration, but, in the end, they released regulations that catered to commercial farms with big investment capital. 

The Cooper Brothers. Photography courtesy of @hill_craft_farmsnc

Daniel Cooper and his twin brother David have made the jump from black market growers to running the above-board Hill Craft Farms today. “The state regulations pulled the carpet from beneath us,” he says.

One of the deepest frustrations I’ve heard is that growers must sell to dispensaries, rather than be able to sell directly from their farms. Reminiscent of the “three-tier system” of alcohol distribution, where breweries and distilleries must sell to a third party distributor to reach stores and restaurants, the state argues the rule is to keep a close eye on a psychoactive substance. Still, it is a tough pill to swallow when California roads brim with stands selling fruits and veggies, not to mention the legions of microbreweries across towns and cities. 

Sweetland’s Markey hopes some day the ridge can be a place where connoisseurs come to taste and sample. “They do it in wine country,” she says with a wave towards Napa and Sonoma County. “Why can’t they do it with herb?”

When we spoke in January, the Cooper brothers said they were getting close to finding their groove in this new world of legal growing, even if, like many farmers, the profits are razor thin. But they came to the ridge 16 years ago to do this and they have no plans of giving up now.

“It’s not just growing,” says Daniel. “It’s a whole culture. We’re holding it down because it’s what we love.”

The post California’s Artisanal Cannabis Farms Were Supposed to Help Build The Legal Market. Then the Bottom Dropped Out appeared first on Modern Farmer.