Santa Barbara County’s cannabis tax revenue takes big jump, partly due to COVID-19, report says

Santa Maria Times, August 29, 2020

“Since the stay-at-home mandate was imposed, the cannabis industry has experienced a sharp increase in consumer demand at the retail level, which in turn impacts the supply chain, creating an increased demand for product supplied by growers,” says the report, authored by fiscal and policy analysts Reese Ellestad and Steven Yee.

“Additionally, new operators are successfully navigating the county’s and state’s regulatory processes, and are therefore entering the market, thus generating new sales and new tax revenue,” the report says.

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Harvesting Cannabis During Covid

Bloomberg,  July 19, 2020

Cannabis farmers and cannabis businesses, we don’t have access to unemployment, small business loans. We don’t have access to any of the rescue money that came for other businesses that were struggling so there’s no safety net for our business. — Sara Rotman, Wellfounded Botanicals

Watch full coverage here

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For Fashion Sage Turned Cannabis Farmer, A Tough Battle With Prohibitionists

Green Entrepreneur,  July 7, 2020

We are very fortunate in Santa Barbara. When they first drafted the ordinance, they allowed us to consider ourselves from an agricultural scale perspective. But even with that, we have a structure in our county where the appeal process is forgiving for any opponent and extremely arduous for someone to make it through. And it is possible for someone to bankrupt a small independent farmer in order to prevent them from coming online in a fully compliant way.

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The Agro Women of Santa Barbara County

Santa Barbara Independent,  July 2, 2020

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Santa Barbara County’s agro women forged ahead, adjusting their approaches to reflect a fast-changing crisis much like their predecessors had done almost four decades earlier. Farmers with wildly diverse productions described similar challenges or sources of inspiration: agricultural teachings to help fuel the industry for generations to come.

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Growing Cannabis in Wine Country: The Shone Farm Project

Wine Industry Network,  July 1, 2020

Dr. George Sellu, Ph.D. Scientifically Assesses the Danger of Grape Taint from Hemp

[Dr.] Sellu suspects that some may not understand the plant terpenes responsible for aromas and flavors. Two examples, linalool in lavender and pinene in raspberries, carrots and pine trees, are both in hemp and grapes. “If you find pinene in wine grapes,” he says, “you wouldn’t blame someone growing carrots nearby.”

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View Dr. Sellou’s Presentation here. 

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