A licensed medicinal marijuana producer the first to use fish to help grow the plants is hoping to get Health Canada’s blessing to sell cannabis.
Flamborough’s Green Relief Inc., which received its cultivation licence in February, was inspected on Nov. 10 to be licensed to sell, said CEO Warren Bravo.
He said he expects to be approved to sell medicinal marijuana by mid-January.
"We’re absolutely waiting with bated breath," he said. "It’s an important step for us, and it’s been a long time in coming."
Generating revenue is the next necessary step so Green Relief the first aquaponics grow facility can start expanding, Bravo said.
The company is trying to raise $50 million to put up a second building on the 50-acre property that would include an 8,000-square-foot laboratory for research, he said.
Already there’s a 30,000-square-foot facility on the site, located near the village of Freelton, which houses four "grow rooms" with about 1,530 cannabis plants in each.
Bravo said they’re able to harvest plants in one of the rooms every two weeks, resulting in a yield of approximately 50 kilograms.
Here is how it works: A concrete building with two to three feet of dirt piled on top is tucked between the rolling hills on their property. Inside the fenced-in facility are thousands of tilapia, housed in tanks in the same room where the cannabis plants are grown. Water is circulated from the fish tanks to the growing beds, where fish poop is used to fertilize the plants.
The fish are removed when they’ve grown to between 1.5 and two pounds so they don’t grow too large for their space. Green Relief donates them to the folks at Second Harvest a food rescue and delivery program and they distribute them to shelters across southwestern Ontario.
Marijuana has been getting a lot of attention in Canada lately, with a federal task force on legalized recreational marijuana having recently come back with a 106-page report containing more than 80 recommendations covering everything from advertising to penalties to selling locations.
At this point, Green Relief is not interested in tapping into the recreational market, Bravo said.
"I think developing the science of this product for medicinal needs is an important focus for us, and I think will kind of pay off at the end," he said.
The marijuana landscape is changing in the United States as well, with several states recently voting in favour of legalizing the drug, either recreationally or medically.
Bravo said he visited a "major city" in California in early December after being asked down to share information about their sustainable technology and see if there is a way to bring it to the United States.
"We want to walk before we run but there’s certainly enough opportunity out there," he said. "People are starting to hear our voice loud and clear on, you can do this sustainably, you can do this ecologically and still have a successful operation."
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker
Full Article: Flamborough Marijuana Producer Looking To Start Selling
Author: Natalie Paddon
Contact: (905) 526-3420
Photo Credit: Chris Seto
Website: The Hamilton Spectator
