WSIA is proud to support our Board Treasurer, Jade Stefano, who was on the cover of the February issue of Cannabis Business Times! Below is an excerpt from the article "Terpenes & Tenacity" about Jade and Puffin Farm:
"In addition to all the work she is putting in her farm to ensure her business’s survival, Stefano is fighting to reduce regulatory barriers that keep outdoor growers from being competitive through her role as treasurer of the Washington Sungrowers Industry Association (WSIA), a pro-outdoor cultivation advocacy group founded by CannaSol Farms owner Jeremy Moberg (who was featured in the inaugural issue of Cannabis Business Times in November 2015).
Most notably, the WSIA is working to change the requirement that growers must put the harvest date on packaging going to dispensaries. “That hurts sun growers by having a harvest date for the consumer to fixate on,” she says, adding that most outdoor farmers only do one harvest a year and keep dried cannabis in storage to sell throughout the year.
The WSIA also is battling communities and environmental agencies targeting outdoor cultivation businesses. For example, local clean air agencies are citing outdoor farms for odor violations despite it being impossible for those farms to implement air filtration systems. (Other agricultural businesses are exempt from these complaints thanks to protections offered by Right to Farm laws.) Also, Chelan County, north of Ellensburg, is “forcing all of their sun growers to either move their farms [or] go indoors,” Stefano says, noting that there are nearly 50 farms in that county that are at risk of being pushed out within the next year. “All of these forces, political and otherwise, are making it really difficult to grow in the sun,” she says."
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