EFFICIENT AND STABLE
Oregon State Legislature will receive recommendations from a task force regarding the energy use, water use and other agricultural practices for commercial cannabis producers, according to The Oregonian. The task force is made up of many lawmakers, cannabis growers and agency representatives, and the group has found that growers are not educated on the best practices for sustainably growing cannabis or agricultural rules that are already in place. The task force is likely to recommend a certification process to aid the cannabis industry in regulating the use of natural resources like energy and water.
Growing cannabis requires a great deal of energy and water. While many growers have expressed their desire to sustainably and efficiently grow cannabis, parameters have not been set by Oregon, and the information on how to operate more eco-friendly has not been established by lawmakers or shared with growers.
The Resource Innovation Institute is a nonprofit in Portland that is dedicated to ensuring responsible consumption of energy and water in cannabis production. A founder of this nonprofit, John Morris, informed the task force that two percent of Colorado’s electricity is consumed by cannabis producers. Energy use alone can amount to about 45 percent of a cannabis grower’s overall costs. As of right now, Morris explained there is not an average number for the gallons of water used for commercial cannabis production, “Some growers may use one gallon (per plant). Others may use five or six or nine.”
Not having a known average for water consumption by cannabis producers makes it difficult to develop state regulations surrounding water use. A biologist named Mowgli Holmes is an advocate for agricultural research for cannabis, as well as the owner of a Portland based company that studies cannabis genomics. Holmes explained that although it is hard to develop state policy due to a lack of research on cannabis best practices, there are still some ways to move cannabis producers toward more energy efficient methods. Some of these methods may include using LED lights, which are more energy efficient, or shifting away from indoor production that is energy-intensive and toward increasing greenhouse operations for growing cannabis.
Either way, more research into the best agricultural practices for cannabis production is needed. Holmes explained, “But there are a lot of other things we just don’t know. It’s hard to incentivize people to do particular things when you don’t know what the baseline is.”
Although outdoor production of cannabis has a negative stigma of yielding a lower quality product than indoor-grown cannabis, one member of the task force explained how this simply is not the case. In fact, the task force member Jared Watters admitted he knows some dispensaries in Oregon are selling outdoor cannabis as indoor, and consumers do not seem to notice a difference in quality.
Watters believes a big reason outdoor cannabis has a negative stigma is because growers were forced into hiding their grows because of cannabis prohibition. He explained how the future for outdoor cannabis is now looking bright, “As more and more farmers come into the open and into 100 percent sunlight, you are seeing that quality go up.”
The task force plans to propose its recommendations later this summer, and hopefully cannabis producers will get the regulations and information needed to grow cannabis efficiently and sustainably.
