The Rural Voice, 2000-03, Page 12LESLIE HAWKEN
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10 THE RURAL VOICE
Robert Mercer
One crop beats all other ag revenue
B.C. has one crop that even the
U.S. growers are moving up to grow
in the province. It's marijuana. The
RCMP in the province have no
difficulty in estimating the value of
the crop at $10
billion a year.
The forestry
industry is
valued at about
$14 billion and
the total food and
beverage market
at $16 billion.
Agriculture by
itself is way
down the list.
Right in the
school district
where I live the
local RCMP
"Green Team"
shut down 20 grow operations in one
month last year. It is also suggested
in police reports that there are
possibly 7,000 such operations across
the province.
Marijuana is a household crop
grown in the basement, the barn or a
shed. You can set up yourself with all
the supplies you need for the
hydroponic system with equipment
from your local Home Hardware or
Homg Depot. A small grow operation
needs about $3,000 to $4,000 to start
off.
In B.C. however, the operations
are very sophisticated, crime -
controlled and totally illegal. The
growers have targeted B.C. as the
court system is very lenient (the most
lax in North America), the police are
understaffed, there is a low incidence
of detection and the product quality
is excellent.
As with farming, B.C. growers
have moved forward with the science
of crop production. Genetic selection
has made the crop 10 times stronger
than it was in the 1960s, and 15 to 20
per cent better than anything grown
south of the U.S. In fact the RCMP
say that because of the concentration
of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in
the B.C. pot, it is now equivalent,
pound for pound, with cocaine
in the U.S.
Growing marijuana is not
difficult. Grow units are sized by the
RCMP on the number of 1,000 watt
bulbs wired into the hydro system. A
good sized operation might have up
to 20 such bulbs. The plants are
individually grown in eight -inch
plastic pots and when mature, look
much like good sized Christmas
trees.
Rather than grow from seeds,
the operators or their bosses have
learned the art of cloning (or
striking) new plants from the old.
One plant can produce 200 new ones
and each is worth about $1,000 when
mature. This gives the average B.C.
grow operation an income of
$300,000 every three months. This
rate of growth has improved with
advances in the control of light, heat,
humidity and fertilizers, as well as
genetics.
It is this kind of illegal profit that
attracts organized crime. Although it
is hard to prove, the RCMP have
suggested that the Hell's Angels
control about 70 per cent of the B.C.
product, and Asian gangs the
majority of the rest. With fines
topping out at $3,000 for grow
operations, the law is no more a
deterrent than it is a cost of doing
business in B.C.
This is an illegal product. It is not
the same product as it was 30 or so
years ago. The teal costs of doing
business in this game top out at
death. The police can track some 20
homicides last year to the trade, with
many more suspected and
undetected.
For Canada, the costs could also
be substantial as the U.S. nearly
placed Canada on its black list as a
drug -source country last year. We
would be in company with such
countries as Colombia and
Afghanistan. So don't convert your
unused greenhouse to this crop that
counts its revenue by the square foot
and not by the acre.0
Robert Mercer was editor of the
Broadwater Market Letter and a farm
commentator in Ontario for 25 years.