Your choices matter
This jar of of tomato sauce represents something important. It was made by Elizabeth from Green Source Gardens, and given to Sally (co-founder of Luminous Botanicals) as a gift. Elizabeth and Nick grew the tomatoes and made the sauce with the same loving care that they put into everything they do. Their farm is a living example of how to grow cannabis regeneratively, in a way that improves the quality of life for all beings in and beyond their watershed. This jar of tomato sauce represents the strength of our cooperative relationship with Green Source Gardens, and our desire to take care of each other.
2018 was a tough year for cannabis farms in Oregon. Wholesale cannabis flower prices plummeted, too low for some farms to even cover their production costs. We were approached by many farms trying to sell flower, each offering a lower price than the last. Yes, we could have bought that inexpensive flower and jumped in on the race to the bottom. But we didn’t. We didn’t because we believe in the vision and values of our farm partners. We wanted prices to stabilize to a level that is sustainable for small farmers, and we wanted to help them survive until that happened. We kept the prices that we were paying to our farm partners steady, to help them ride out the year of the Oregon wholesale market being flooded with inexpensive flower.
What you choose to purchase in a dispensary matters. Those big multi-state brands that are owned by out-of-state and foreign investors can afford to sell at below cost so they can starve out the smaller Oregon-owned companies, and then buy up the pieces when the locally-owned businesses can’t hold on any longer. This consolidation isn’t good for market diversity and it isn’t good for Oregonians. It is happening, right now.
Please be intentional with your dollars, no matter what form of cannabis you are purchasing. Consider choosing Oregon-owned brands that will reinvest earnings into your local economy rather than extract profits to another state or country. Consider supporting the Oregon cannabis farmers that laid the foundation for today’s cannabis industry. Consider that you are choosing what world you want to live in with every purchase. It matters.