“Your factor costs in terms of labor are significantly cheaper.” “If you think about it, greenhouses in other countries are trying to emulate the natural conditions we get here for free,” Clever Leaves’ president Andres Fajardo told CNN. High altitude - Clever Leaves’ farm, in Boyacá, sits at 9,377 feet above sea level - means fewer pesticides are required to stem bacteria and disease than at lower altitudes, making it easier to grow organic products. The Andean nation enjoys perfect conditions for the cultivation of marijuana: 12 hours of sunlight give way to 12 hours of darkness virtually every day of the year, with minimal seasonal change. Thanks to that policy change, Colombian companies are now confident they can compete in the pharmaceutical markets in Europe and North America. In July, Colombian president Ivan Duque loosened regulations to allow the export of dry cannabis flowers, which accounts for more than 50% of the demand in markets like the US. With more than 130,000 medical cannabis plants, Clever Leaves’ farm, a former cattle ranch a few hours north of Bogota, represents Colombia’s turnaround on marijuana and its aspiration to convert one of the world’s largest ecosystems for illegal drugs into a legal weed powerhouse.Īlthough marijuana cultivation has been legal since late 2016, for the past five years Colombian companies could only export active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and therefore were banned from the most lucrative parts of the business.
When Beatriz Porras was studying agronomy at university in Tunja, Colombia, she thought her career would lead to growing coffee, like her parents, or flowers, the traditional agricultural staples for the country’s export market.īack then, growing marijuana was illegal, and security forces targeted plantations with forced eradication campaigns aimed at stemming illicit trafficking.įive years later, the 29-year old engineer oversees the cutout process at Clever Leaves, one of Colombia’s largest medical marijuana companies and the first in South America to receive the EU certification to trade pharmaceutical products.
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