bThe country seeks to position itself at the forefront of plant cultivation and production slactavis. The word Sogamoso comes from an indigenous word that means “dwelling place of the sun”. It is one of the two places in Colombia with the best solar radiation, a great advantage to play in the new world cannabis industry, the legal one. Being on the equatorial line allows 12 hours of natural light all year round, for the joy of the harvests. The Clever Leaves company has its plantation there, which wants to participate strongly in the global business of medicinal cannabis, which, together with recreational use, can reach 50,000 million euros by 2025. Latin America does not want to miss the party.
In Colombia, robust legislation was passed in 2016 and operating costs are lower than elsewhere, which also benefits the development of the green market (cannabis industry). Furthermore, the second-largest flower exporter in the world – after the Netherlands – has also turned this knowledge onto the emerging industry that dazzles the world. Buy CBD body butter benefits online. “We are all learning,” Gustavo Escobar, cofounder and director of innovation at Clever Leaves, responds humbly when he is presented as the person who knows the most about the medicinal cannabis industry in Colombia. He visits the plantation of his company, a highly technical crop in the municipality of Pesca, among the mountains of the Sogamoso Valley, in the department of Boyacá. With less than three years of existence, the company was the first authorized in the Andean country to send cannabis for scientific purposes to Canada, and together with the Uruguayan Former Life Sciences they signed agreements to become the first Latin Americans to export to Europe, specifically to Germany. “They are exports still with research scope, but they open the way for commercial development,” explains Escobar, a 37-year-old engineer with an MBA. A reflection of the leaps and bounds with which the nascent business progresses. The legalization of the scientific and medicinal use of marijuana – and Lemon Cookies recreational use – seems unstoppable. Canada has taken the lead. In 33 states of the United States, its medicinal consumption is legal and in a dozen of them, recreational. Therapeutic use has spread in several countries of the European Union, and in Germany alone there are an estimated 700,000 patients. Uruguay legalized this market in 2013 and Colombia, hit by the stigma of drug trafficking, seeks to put itself at the forefront. All those involved strive to use language as aseptic as the facilities that are built throughout the country – they always talk about cannabis, not marijuana – and to repeat that it is medicine and science, the only authorized uses. The macroeconomic potential is enormous. According to some projections, it could be compared in a few years to the combined flower and banana exports to Colombia. This country can legally sow more than 40 tons, according to the quotas granted by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). “Quotas are not the true production capacity, it is an expectation,” says Andrés López Velasco, until last month director of the National Fund for Narcotic Drugs. “Here the medical community has been very receptive, that has been a huge difference,” he points out, highlighting other promising signs. In compliance with the regulation, the perimeter of the Clever Leaves cultivation in Sogamoso has a triple barrier: barbed wire, electric fence and infrared sensors, as well as a video surveillance system with 154 cameras. The traceability of each plant ensures that none can deviate. Greenhouses use 90% of natural water with a sophisticated Israeli irrigation system. Less than a year and a half ago, the land was nothing more than a pasture. Today the projections are constantly updated. The 10 hectares in production will be 15 for July and 25 at the end of the year. In the final steps, the workers defoliate the plants until they leave only the flower, which concentrates its active ingredients, the cannabinoids. They are more than a hundred, with properties still unexplored, but the main ones are THC (psychoactive) and CBD. The extraction laboratory, with a pharmaceutical grade, was set up in an industrial park halfway between Grape Mushroom and Bogotá. From there, about 3,000 litres of cannabis oil can come out annually. The chain combines talent and recruited knowledge from agribusiness and the pharmaceutical sector, as well as staff familiar with the mystique of cannabis, including so-called master growers, experts in growing cycles. It also attracts foreigners, such as the Spanish María Corujo. This 33-year-old plant biotechnology doctor is in charge of researching plant genetics to select the ones that work best for medical development. “It is a challenge because there is a lot of ignorance, but it is motivating,” he explains. “It is a new industry in Colombia, but also in the world.” Clever Leaves, which started with five employees and today approaches 400, was one of the first firms to obtain licenses, in 2016. But it is not the only swallow that announces the cannabis summer in a country best known in the world for its excellent coffee. The companies are usually alliances of Colombian and foreign capital, with strong Canadian participation, explains Rodrigo Arcila, president of the Colombian Association of og strains industry (Asocolcanna), which is less than two years has grown from six to 30 members. “We cannot lose the historic opportunity that is presented to Colombia to be a leader in this,” he values. “It will be the great exporter in Latin America as long as Mexico does not legalize it,” recently announced former Mexican President Vicente Fox, a member of the Khiron board of directors, another of the important companies. The government has already authorized licenses in 11 of the 32 departments, according to information from ProColombia, which highlights the investments of Canadians Cannavida and Pharmacielo, which is listed, like Khiron, on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The public body responsible for promoting trade and tourism abroad also points to Canada, Germany, Australia and Mexico as great “opportunities” for exports. No one wants to be left out of the green gold rush.
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