Will large-scale outdoor marijuana growing operations eventually be coming to Delta farmland?
So far, nobody has come forward with a plan to do so, but a company that’s involved with a massive East Ladner greenhouse is doing just that in Richmond.
Emerald Health Therapeutics has announced it recently received a licence amendment from Health Canada for outdoor cannabis cultivation on 12 acres, having just completed the planting of 45,000 organic cannabis seedlings. The company expects the first crop of outdoor cannabis flower to be harvested in the third quarter of 2019.
“Emerald is one of the few Canadian licensed producers licensed by Health Canada to cultivate cannabis outdoors this year. In the 2019 outdoor growing season, Emerald will be growing for commercial purposes but will in particular assess cultivars and cultivation and harvesting techniques that would support the future potential scale-up of reliable, quality, and low-cost cannabis,” the company states.
Emerald recently confirmed with the Optimist the Lower Mainland outdoor facility is in Richmond. It’s part of a 20-acre operation that will eventually have two greenhouses as well. The company has also stated there’s potential to expand the outdoor growing area to 24 acres.
Emerald has a joint venture with Village Farms, called Pure Sunfarms, to grow cannabis at Village Farms in East Ladner.
The first 1.1-million-square-foot (25-acre) greenhouse is now in full production and the second 1.1-million-square foot greenhouse is being converted for operation in 2020.
Last summer, the provincial government announced that local and First Nations governments would be able to prohibit cannabis production in the Agricultural Land Reserve within their communities, but only if cannabis is grown in ways that don’t preserve the productive capacity of agricultural land.
The regulatory change gives authority to local governments to “prohibit cement-based, industrial-style, cannabis-production bunkers on ALR land in their communities” but also stipulates that cannabis production cannot be prohibited if grown lawfully in an open field, a structure that has a soil base or in a structure that was either fully constructed or under construction prior to July 13, 2018.
It means city council’s approval isn’t needed for proposals to grow pot in an open farm field.
The City of Delta has been reiterating its concerns about cannabis, which is now also being grown in several local greenhouses, and its impact on farmland.
“While the existing cannabis production facilities and speculation of future facilities continue to impact the viability of agricultural lands for food production in Delta, we are concerned about the potential impacts of light pollution, odour, theft and violence, and contaminated runoff associated with cannabis production,” Mayor George Harvie wrote to Premier John Horgan and Agriculture Minister Lana Popham last fall.
“Regulating these facilities has proven to be challenging due to the interpretation that the facilities are considered a farm use and are therefore protected by the Right to Farm Act. Many cannabis production facilities more closely resemble industrial operations than farms. Immediate action is needed to support food security for the region.”
