Here's what’s going on around the homestead…
H.612 Testimony
I would have preferred hibernation, but I haven’t sat idly over the winter of 2024. I was invited to testify on behalf of Rural VT before the VT Senate Agricultural Committee and the VT House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee regarding H.612 - the Miscellaneous Cannabis Bill. I spoke about our challenges with the VT DEC and the impact of cannabis cultivators not fully being able to receive the same benefits as other farmers. In one of my testimonies and several e-mails I also advocated for limited direct to consumer sales for cultivators, ending THC caps, and pushed back against the amendment to give towns the authority to create cultivation districts and unreasonable set-backs for cannabis crops.
Greenhouse Progress
If you’ve been following our story you know we’ve been trying to get off the ground since we were licensed in 2022. Thanks to nosey (and definitely not ecologically responsible by the looks of their property) neighbors that complained to the town we were “interfering with wetlands,” it took an entire year to prove to the VT DEC that the land we were working with was not a wetland. If we were legally able to receive a farm determination letter, like farms do, there wouldn’t have been any question about our work continuing. But, when you grow cannabis, you have to play by an entirely different set of rules that are constantly changing. We were able to start getting the framing up in the fall of 2023 until the winter weather hit. We hope to complete the project in April of 2024 so we can finally grow our full licensed canopy allotment.