Jeff Aubin is looking to bring better bud to the legal cannabis market with Smoker Farms.
Located in Beaverdell, the small-batch husband-and-wife-run cannabis farm aims for higher quality weed than what a factory farm can mass produce. For Aubin, who lives in Kelowna, it’s the care and effort that goes into the bud that helps make it better.
“The legal weed market, it doesn’t really have a supply of good cannabis, as far as I’m concerned,” said Aubin. “There’s many more like me, who think there’s just no love, it’s mass-produced garbage, it comes to you in little containers, and it’s usually bone-dry.”
Aubin plans to bring the same small-batch mentality that has led to a boom in craft brewing across the province.
“Being craft, just like its wine, or just like its beer, we’re looking to add some more love and care to our product,” said Aubin.
Smoker Farms received a license from Health Canada last month for micro-cultivation of cannabis, and they’ve wasted no time in getting started. They’ve already started growing their cultivations, including a particular MK Ultra cultivar that Aubin has been working on for years. The goal is to have their product on sale by the end of the year.
Aubin is a little surprised that there aren’t more micro-farms like his own to compete with, but he’s not complaining. It means that he gets to keep his slice of Kootenays to himself.
“I’ve owned property in Beaverdell for 14 years,” said Aubin. “It’s a nice idyllic setting in the country, and there’s Kettle River spring water for the plants. Just a different lifestyle out there, it made sense to put something in the middle of nowhere. Everybody you know in the West Kootenays grows weed, we just decided to do it legal.”
The licence for the cultivation was granted to Smoker Farms in partnership with dicentra CannabisConsulting (dCC), according to a press release on the business.
“We’re working as a team, they’re well-rooted in the industry, so they’re helping me out to do as much damage as we can to the crappy weed market,” said Aubin.
Jensen.edwards@grandforksgazette.caLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
