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

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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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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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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

Marijuana Business Daily,  June 26, 2020

Under the proposed California regulations, growers can’t deem their cannabis as explicitly organic but can apply the OCal seal if they adhere to the rules, including proper use of approved pesticides and fertilizers.

California would join Washington state as two of the state-legal cannabis markets to consider an organic certification for marijuana products.

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