Two of Victoria’s agribusiness leaders are joining forces to establish a medical cannabis company.
Former GrainCorp director, Allan McCallum and former Nufarm managing director, Doug Rathbone, have joined up to establish Cann Group – an operation that will use hydroponic methods to grow cannabis plants for their oil, which will be infused into therapeutic products including bath salts, skin cream and even dog biscuits.
Plans for the venture began two years ago, however, it received significant validation two weeks ago when the Australian Federal Government announced that it was legalizing the cultivation of cannabis for medical and scientific purposes.
Cann Group will establish its operations in a factory in a Melbourne suburb using modified shipping containers to hydroponically grow the cannabis plants in a controlled environment.
Due to security issues, legal cannabis cultivation will likely always need to be grown in indoor operations instead of broadacre farms said Mr. McCallum to avoid theft.
Cann Group is being required to employ thorough security measures, including security cameras equipped with facial recognition capabilities that are linked to police surveillance networks, to monitor the business and growing chambers. The company will also employ ‘seed to sale’ plant tracking software developed in Colorado to track each individual plant to meet regulatory requirements.
“Colorado has the highest regulatory requirements in the US and is the model other states are aspiring to,” said Mr. McCallum.
Cannabis has grown to be a US$3 billion industry in the U.S. and Cann Group plans to export raw oil and products infused with cannabis oil, such as therapeutic and nutraceutical products to the U.S. market, but hopes that the Australian market will mature to a point that the company can focus on meeting local demand.
The state of Colorado, which has an equal population to Victoria, has about 110,000 state-registered medical marijuana patients, and concentrated oil can sell for up to US$52,000 per liter.