“This really is a game changer for the industry and I think outdoor cultivation will be the norm.”
Jeannette Vandermarel of 48North says 250,000 marijuana plants will soon be grown on 100 acres in Brant County.
What makes their farm different is that, unlike most pot producers in the country, their plants it will be grown outside.
“It’ll be Canada’s largest, and likely the world’s largest, legal cannabis farm,” says Vandermarel.
The plants won’t be contained to a confined space like they are in indoor facilities.
Alison Gordon, the company’s co-founder, says the sky’s the limit.
“When you’re growing outdoors, you have a low cost input and a quality input that you’re able to extract and turn into the vapes, the edibles, and all these products that both patients and consumers are really looking for in the Canadian market.”
48North is building their budding business on land that used to be used as a tobacco farm.
“This is ideal land to grow cannabis on,” says Vanderamarel. “It grows really well in Southern Ontario. There’s a lot of people growing it currently with medical patients, but there’s great ground here for growing cannabis.”
The company says their farm will be secured with fences, motion sensors and more than 100 security cameras.
“I feel that we’ve gone above and beyond what was required by Health Canada for this farm,” says security manager Mike Garbowsky. “We wanted redundancy so there are no holes on our perimeter.”
In addition to the outdoor farm in Brant County, 48North is building indoor facilities in Brantford and Kirkland Lake.
They’re expected to hire 50 fulltime and 200 seasonal workers once construction is complete.
