How to Start a Cannabis Business: Scale, Expand & Automate

The Talking Hedge

Farm automation technology addresses major issues like a rising global population, farm labor shortages, and changing consumer preferences. The benefits of automating traditional farming processes are monumental.

Labor is over 50% of the cost to grow a farm and 55% of farmers say they are impacted by labor shortages. Because of this, 31% of farmers are moving to less labor-intensive crops.

There is a misconception that mechanization displaces farm labor and encourages rural– urban migration, but the opposite is true: mechanization improves well-being and increases decent work opportunities.

Indoor cannabis cultivation has always been intimately bound to the technology supporting it.

For growers, the most urgent technology needs and compelling cost-savings opportunities are harvest-related. Despite mechanized seed-to-bud efficiencies, the post-grow clipping and trimming of leaves and stems is largely done by hand.

Ideally, growers wouldn't have any humans involved in post-harvest because of the higher risk of contamination. If farms could it would completely automate the post-harvest phase and reassign employees to inspection duties. But most can't. Not yet, anyway.

In modern cannabis production, our biggest motivator for technological advancement is no longer secrecy: it is profitability. By 2020, innovation in horticultural technology was dedicated almost exclusively to operational efficiency.

Looking specifically at automation in cultivation, commercial growers are using computers, robots, machines, and more to increase profitability on several fronts.

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