Cannabis co-operatives: Can working together preserve small players?
The fear is that cannabis could risk becoming just like any other industrialized cash crop
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Hezekiah Allen believes in small family farms, though he’s biased — he grew up on one. Born in an off-the-grid community of rural Humboldt County, Allen was raised surrounded by a culture of craft cannabis farming that’s now being threatened in the scramble for dominance of California’s newly legal marketplace. That’s why, in recent years, he’s devoted his efforts to shaping a more equitable regulatory framework for small cannabis farmers as executive director for the California Growers Association (CGA). In September 2018, Allen transitioned to the private sector as chairman of Emerald Grown, a mutual benefit corporation made up of cannabis cooperative organizations — or co-ops — aimed at helping those same “legacy” growers adapt and compete.
