What is Cannabis Micro-growing?

Among the regulatory proposals mentioned in the paper discussed above, the first focuses on a system of licensing that has been designed to allow small-scale companies to partake in different activities in the industry.

Thus far, there were only standard licenses issued exclusively to large-scale growers who were able to meet the existing requirements set out by ACMPR. Now, the situation is going to change, as the proposal has outlined a new category of licenses, reserved for small-scale cultivators and processors.

So, in other words, the cannabis micro-cultivation license would allow smaller producers to grow cannabis and distribute it to provincial resellers or large-scale cultivators who will then sell it to the public or to other cannabis producers.

Actually, the cannabis micro-cultivation licenses fall into three categories:

• Regular: this type of a cannabis micro-cultivation license applies to all subjects who want to grow and harvest material from those plants.

• Nursery: the nursery program has been introduced to authorize the growing of cannabis plants in order to produce the starting material, namely seeds and seedlings.

• Industrial hemp: it would authorize small-scale farmers to grow industrial hemp plants, i.e. those with 0.3% THC or less.

Now, let’s take a look at the anticipated production standards. Besides the standard processing – which would authorize the large-scale processing (packaging and labeling) of cannabis to the intra-industry sale of these products as well as to consumers – the government introduced the micro-processing framework for aspiring producers.

Micro-processing would enable small-scale companies to manufacture, package, label, and sell cannabis products to consumers and to provincially authorized distributors; this would apply to both the medical and recreational use of marijuana.

So you know what the small-cultivation license is, but do you know how it differs from the standard one?

Here’s the breakdown.

The Difference Between Micro-cultivation and Standard Licenses

According to the Health Minister, MP Ginette Pets Taylor, the aim of the micro-cultivation licenses is to level out the inequalities between the large- and small-scale cultivators (at least at some points) and make it easier for aspiring growers to join the legal industry instead of dabbling with the black market.

Furthermore, the Health Minister announced that the current security requirements for large-scale marijuana licensed producers would also apply to the incoming recreational framework in order to prevent organized crime from drawing the benefits from the legal system.

To some extent, micro-cultivation licenses are pretty much the same as their standard counterparts, save for a few details:

Square footage

There’s been a hot debate as to what the ultimate square footage for micro-cultivation licenses should look like. Suggestions for the maximum size varied between 10,000 and 20,000 square feet, but the final square footage for micro-cultivators would permit a canopy area of no more than 2,153 square feet (200 square meters). This is much less than in the case of large-scale cultivators, but it still allows craft cannabis growers to do their job.

Monitoring security

The main difference between large licensed producers and micro-cultivators and processors lies in the physical security standards. Companies with a micro-cultivating license will have just a handful of employees – their number generally doesn’t go beyond 25. Therefore, the government proposed to reduce the requirements for micro-businesses when it comes to monitoring the cannabis storage areas, which saves tons of paperwork during the attempt to obtain the license.

For more information or to start your application process please visit our website at www.alphacureconsulting.ca