Hello.

Welcome again to Royal Grown radio on Michael.

Back here with Rick Elliot.

Hey, what’s up?

Today we are joined by the cofounders of the Humboldt County

Growers Alliance, Madeline and Tara.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you one.

So the Humble Company Growers Alliance does a lot in the

community. We see a lot of you not just in the community,

but all over the country.

We run into you lax and varying events all over the place,

tie in this world together.

So tell us a little bit about why you founded Humble County

Growers Alliance and the primary mission of what you do.

Well, it’s kind of an interesting story.

Tara and I met originally back about five years ago.

This summer.

It will be five years old is summertime.

But we had been working together through the Humble County

land use ordinance through the development process.

I came from the environmental side of advocacy.

Terra came from the industry we met.

We were working through that first land use ordinance.

That was California cannabis voice, humble at the time.

I was coming from Epic, the Environmental Protection Information

Center. And that’s when we met.

Yeah.

And it was a difficult period of time.

And there was a lot of voices and a lot of people I’m just

going to speak for my and I’ll have Tara hop in.

At that point in time, people were arguing about whether

square footage should be allotted to only 2, 500 square feet,

which is crazy to think about now.

And there were people from the environmental world that we’re

saying that that’s where it needed to stay.

And Tara reached out to me through Facebook and sent me a

message and said, Hey, do you want to meet me at a blueberry

patch out in Field Brook?

And I went out and met her in this blueberry patch.

And she’s like, this blueberry patches, four acres, 30,000

square feet, 30,000 square feet.

Like, how big do you think this is?

And it was like, is this functionally sized?

Could this be a cannabis farm if these weren’t blueberries,

if this was cannabis, what would you think of this?

And I was like, well, it’s no brainer makes total sense.

Why would we not?

And that was sort of the Genesis of, okay, the virus might

be on our side.

That was, I agree, very difficult and trying time.

And I think Humble County has come out first in a lot of

things. And that first land use ordinance was a community

discussion that really needed to happen over many decades.

And the irony of the whole friction between the environmental

community and the cannabis community is that the cannabis

community founded the environmental community.

And so we had a lot of cultural issues and therapy sessions,

essentially, that we really needed to figure out.

And that square footage was really that Nexus of where are

we going to go with this as a community?

And that blueberry patch, 30,000 square feet.

It’s not that big.

It’s not very big.

And that’s a really cool visualization for me.

I’ve been to this Noble blueberry farm.

No, take my kids there.

It’s awesome when you put it in that perspective.

A blueberry Bush has a similar footprint to a mature cannabis

plant. Generally.

That’s a tiny farm compared to what we see all over the place.

And to be realistic and functioning as a farm today in this

cannabis environment that’s small to even begin to compete.

So that’s a really interesting bit of perspective.

That that’s what brought you together as advocate and environmental

advocate, to kind of bring the point to a sphere.

I love that I come from environmental work and nonprofit

volunteering work background, too.

So that speaks to me very, very much.

And I like you’re talking about how the cannabis movement

did really give birth to the environment, environmental movement

here, fighting the logging, fighting the overfishing the

decimation. And we’ve all seen that firsthand living in this

community. And now we’re seeing the opposite where a lot

of the cannabis people are fighting against regulation.

True, to some degree, I think that the cannabis industry,

at least through Island, has been through a lot in the last

six years.

We’ve had two local land use ordinances.

We had a state medical framework that finally caught up after

20 years of having the state really taking their hands off

and not giving any guidance or protection from my opinion.

And then we had the medical framework and then Prop 64 and

within that handful of regulatory packages that came forward

in multiple state agencies.

And so I view the industry as in those who signed up in more

of just been in crisis shock mode, trying to adapt and pivot.

And I think the interesting perspective, too, is that not

only was the industry trying to adapt and pivot to all these

new rules and regulations, but so is government.

Local government had to scale up.

And humble County when looking across the state a phenomenal

job of being able to bring people into compliance compared

to other areas.

But Alternatively, also the state has had to scale up.

And so you’ve got new agencies, new leadership, new everything.

And it’s not going to end.

We’re going to see the continuation of new regulations.

I find that the industry doesn’t push back on regulations

as much as they push back on what I consider like a lack

of trust building.

Some agencies are better than others in establishing trust

and recognizing that it’s going to take a while to really

work together than others.

And so it depends on the regulation, depends on the agency.

It depends on, of course, the Farmer two, Yeah.

And that work.

Obviously, it’s cut out for you and everybody else in this

County because of the history we’re talking, like four or

5 decades, almost a really rich us in their mentality and

working through those to come to a new solution in a new

day is definitely it’s really challenging for a lot of growers

in this community, in education, too.

I think you hit that point like the war on drugs, the war

on people, and it was apparently felt specifically in Southern

humble, more so Southern humble, Northern Mindo in the three

counties. That for what is the word I’m looking for where

the three counties come together, I think the Emerald Triangle.

Yeah.

The triangle, but that Nexus right there.

There’s a lot of trauma in that space.

And there’s been a lot of trauma and education on the history

of the war on drugs.

And the war on people is needed so that we can understand

where to go because we can’t ever lose where we’ve been,

and nor do we need to or nor do we want to, because it can

never be ever done like that again.

It was one of the biggest smear campaigns on groups of people

that the United States has ever done.

Right.

And I think the regulatory bodies could really take a lot

of lessons from looking back at that time and looking at

the people that were operating because in a large part, cannabis

growers were self regulating on the environmental side, and

they were doing things to a level that hadn’t been done in

respecting the environment and trying to not cut too many

trees and not decimate their water supplies and not polite

because they also lived off this land set.

I think that’s a really cool point, that these people were

really the birthplace of this industry and suffered disproportionately

from the enforcement.

And those are the people I think that need to have a voice

moving forward.

So I really love that you take that to Hartner, trying to

find ways to get those growers to come together and share

that voice and create a dialogue.

What sort of projects are you all working on right now to

kind of bring those growers voices together and bring that

to the regulatory table to kind of go back to that origin

story a little bit, which is we came from these disparate

areas we worked through 20 16, November 6, 2,016.

Donald Trump was elected President, and Prop.

64 was passed and the whole world changed.

And Tara and I had been talking and we really realized that

the community was going to need there’s a lot of these big

changes. We felt the tsunami.

We felt the earthquake coming in to 20 14.

There was no way things were not going to change.

So I was like, how do you get ahead of this?

And through that as MRSA was passed and signed by the governor

in late 2,015, and then we had Prop 64 and then Donald Trump,

it was like, we’re going to need to organize.

We’re going to need to come together and make sure that our

industry does not get swallowed up by the outside, that we

have a really resilient group of people.

We have a group of people that really want to protect the

environment. They want to do the right thing.

They want to willing to work with professionals to bring

ourselves into compliance.

And we worked through that.

And that moment in November, I was like, Oh, shit.

And she and I had been looking, we’re like, someone else

is going to do this right, hoping someone else is going to

do it, drinking lots of wine.

Yeah.

Who’s doing it?

Someone else is going to do this.

And then eventually we were sitting there looking, we’re

like, I don’t think anybody else is going to do this.

We’re like, Are we going to do this?

And then we put our heads together.

And through that December, and it was like people wanted

to organize.

And we had a good idea.

And our mission is to preserve, protect and enhanced unbolt

counties. World renowned cannabis industry.

We do three major things, which is advocacy, public relations

and education.

Everything that we do as education, whether we’re educating

ourselves or members of legislature, where everything is

education. It’s a new industry.

That’s the thing we’re constantly learning.

Nobody’s done this before.

This is every year as things change and grow, this is all

new. We’re all learning this together and learning how to

make it right for as many people as possible.

And Humble County continues to lead, I think, take a lot

of heat being the first in line and trying new things out.

But I can say right now that even though it feels really

tough, we’re wildly more successful than other places that

are trying to do the same thing in various fields, whether

it’s policy or it’s community development or it’s starting

to understand what the future looks like as it comes to marketing

and Appalachians and the fun stuff.

Sure.

I agree.

Humble is awesome.

I get to do the entire state, for the most part as a territory,

as an employee for Royal Gold.

And it’s interesting.

In the very beginning, I had a lot of my community brands

and family constituents ask what it looks like out there.

What are the chances that they’re going to have to even survive

this? And it was really interesting because obviously, I

could always be an advocate for my own community.

I always know that the climate here is very it’s perfect

for what we do.

And I would always hope I always had a little more understanding

for the lack of an economy and how we become so reliant on

this plant and the cultivation in this area that I really

hope that we would come around as a community and as a County.

But I wasn’t positive.

And there were always times where I would look around and

come to different areas of California desert hot Springs

in the Coachella Valley, being one of them where they were

really kind of starving for an economic boost of their own.

And they really kind of got out in front of it right out

of the gates.

But looking back now, I can definitely say I feel pretty

comfortable and confident in our place at this point in time.

We have a lot of farms that are here four years later, almost.

And they’re doing it.

They’re able to stay in front of it.

They’re making things work.

I see their Instagram, their social media platforms getting

stronger and stronger.

I feel better about it than I did three and a half years

ago. And I was like, I think we’re going to be fine, guys.

And then I turn around go, Oh, man, I hope we’re going to

be okay.

Well, that’s such an interesting thing with Royal Gold.

We both traveled around and we go to these legal markets

before Prop 64 past.

And we’re in Washington and Colorado and Oregon and observing

all these legal markets develop.

And you’re seeing a lot of the struggles real time with people

fighting with bureaucracy and trying to figure out how regulations

work from both sides.

Again, the regulators are struggling, too, at the same time,

and you got to have a little empathy for that.

That it’s all new for them, grasping at straws to understand

this thing that people have been doing for decades and decades.

So there’s a learning curve there.

But watching those things develop in other places and then

coming back home and being like, Hey, friends, like, look

at what’s going on in the world.

We’re being left behind.

We were the Mecca.

We were where this all started.

And Humble is where this all started.

This general commercial, fine craft cannabis movement started

here. It’s what brought me here from the Midwest, and a lot

of the other people involved in the industry brought us here

from all over.

It’s really interesting to me to look at that in the rear

view and kind of see that what you’re doing every day with

the Growers Alliance is a lot of what Rick and I were seeing

a need for out in the world.

It’s like, All right, Let’s unify Let’s lead the way again

and show people how we do do it better, and we can do it

the best in the world.

And there’s a reason that Humble has this name.

A lot of what we talk about here on Royal Grown Radio is

what brought you to Humble.

How did you end up here on this path that led us all to the

same room sitting here talking today?

Almost everyone we’ve talked to has come from out of the

area. I know that’s not true of you, right, Tara?

Yeah.

No, I’m born and raised here in Humble.

Grew up in Fox Farm, up in Trinidad West Haven area.

My parents moved me out of here when I was 13.

I didn’t grow up in the industry, but I grew up with a father

who was a Professor at Hsu and a radical hippie, and he smoked

a lot of weeds.

So early on I learned that you can be smart and have a PhD

and smoke a lot of weed.

So I never had this filter of this is a plant that is bad.

I grew up with it, but again, not on a commercial scale.

And then moved to Alaska and UT as 14, 13, 14.

We Ave to Bellingham, Washington when I was 18 and I would

come down here and trim and I would always be so excited

to come home.

And then so sad to leave and go back up there and I go to

school and drop out, go snowboarding.

And it was a rinse and repeat.

It was fantastic.

I recommend it for everybody, like, trimming, snowboarding,

dropping out of school, pinch your parents off, but you will

be so happy in the moment.

Yeah.

And then one summer spring, I was coming down for her first

steps. I was in a 97 Subaru, came down, got stuck in Panther

Gap, and I never left.

Yeah.

You’ll hear this so many times on Royal Grown Radio.

We’ve already we’re in our first season.

We’ve got a few episodes in the can here, and almost everybody

broke down in Humble.

Not most of them started here, but almost everybody broke

down and was like, Wow, I think I’ll stay.

Yeah.

I’m never leaving.

It’s pretty cool.

It’s the best.

Absolutely.

And from somebody who’s not from this area, it’s the best.

Once you get here and get settled, it’s really hard to leave.

And we see it all the time.

People are like, I’m moving away.

I try to warn them and tell them it’s not that easy to come

back. I don’t want you on my couch again for another six

months. Please don’t do this.

That’s true.

I have the piles of air mattresses from people who have filtered

in and out, and they’re going to come for a few months trim

and then try somewhere.

They’re like, Can I just store my air mattress?

I literally have stacks of them from decades of trimming

and air mattress.

I’m going camping this weekend is happy.

I’m happy to lend you some air mattresses.

I have little ones, big ones, some really nice ones.

One.

How did you get here?

I am.

He came up here to go to College at Humble State University.

I started back to school when I was in my mid 20?

S because I was on a rinse and repeat cycle, but I was living

at the Beach in San Diego.

Sweet.

Not snowboarding, but plain in the opposite, the warm weather

version of that, but decided to go back to College when I

was in my mid twenties.

I knew I really wanted to do biology.

I loved the environment.

I actually wanted to protect the whales.

I wanted to save the whales as cliche as that is, but came

up to Humble State.

They had an awesome marine biology program.

But then I decided and realized that biologists were not

allowed to be as opinionated as I am.

I switched into policy because I was like, you can’t learn

about how everything is all messed up and then not fix it.

And I wanted to fix it.

And and I also discovered the forest.

And I started reading about what was going on with the timber

Wars and what had been going on.

And right when I had moved up is when Pacific Number was

going through its bankruptcy.

And so there was a lot of this news media that was still

catching on.

And I read about these people that were the forest defenders

and people that were putting their lives on the line.

I was like, This is really cool.

And I’m from Southern California, which is about one of the

most vapid cultures that exist.

And I knew I wanted to leave.

I knew I had to get out of there.

And as soon as I got to Humble, I could breathe.

And I was like, This is going to be my home.

And, Yeah, coming out of that area, the brief thing is definitely

real. Yeah.

Literally and figuratively.

And I chose Humble over Hawaii and over San Luis Bispo and

over other places where people are like, why are you going

up there?

And then I remember my friends are like, you’re going to

start you’re going to get involved in point.

It’s been fun.

Yeah.

This is my home.

That’s really cool.

That’s the other thing.

That a lot of the people we’ve been speaking with if they

didn’t break down here, the Hsu brought them here.

And it was a lot for the marine biology and the environmental

Sciences Department.

You know, last week we had the ladies from Dirty Business,

and we had to wait in the soils Professor from Hsu all here

talking about that same stuff.

And one thing that we touched on that really excited me and

really just sparked so many questions, especially being from

the potting soil side of the industry.

And having been a farmer for decades is the whole Appalachian

considerations that everybody’s really starting to look a

lot deeper at right now and certifying your environment,

certifying your soils.

And I know you ladies both have a lot of experience and advocacy

going on in this room.

Can I tell you a secret, please?

Are you sure?

Yes.

Okay.

It’s the magic.

This is what Appalachians are to your point earlier about

when you went and traveled to the other places.

And you you’ve seen Washington.

I know you’ve been to Santa Barbara and you’ve been out to

desert hot Springs.

And you see agriculture start adopting practices with cannabis.

We’re American.

So what do we do?

We want bigger, better, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And that’s reflected in a lot of those places, Humble County

because of Prohibition, I would say reduced.

But we were leveled out as a playing field because the bigger

you got you got NAB by law enforcement.

Right.

And so we have all of these really arguably small farms compared

to 40 acres in Santa Barbara, Washington, Oregon, totally

looking at what the hemp industry has done in the last year.

We are arguably the smallest, but we have so many players.

But in the past, we were the biggest because of Prohibition.

And so we have that mentality and that drive to go big.

I mean, we’ve all heard it.

It’s everywhere.

Go big, go big.

Go as big as you can without getting caught.

Okay, go bigger.

I got caught.

I’m going to do it again.

That was that mentality.

Well, now we’re really facing a different world.

And instead of being commodity producers, which we were because

not only could we go big here, and Humble, due to a lot of

politics and the district attorney and the culture, we couldn’t

market and brand ourselves.

And so we were going big, producing what the state or the

country would look at as a commodity production reign for

cannabis. Now we’re having to shift our focus into a value

production region for cannabis because we’re not ever going

to compete.

Or should we or should we want to with the true commodity

producers that we’re seeing come online down in Santa Barbara

and does our hot Springs when federal prohibition lifts its

head, like, we’re not going to have 100 acre cannabis scribes

here. And we shouldn’t we don’t have the resources.

We don’t have the culture.

We need to wretch at that back.

So now we have to fit the community.

Not at all.

Even though we were the biggest in the past, we won’t be

into the future.

So a lot of the work we’ve done is try to strategize.

And it’s not just Nataline and I this is a whole host of

people in heritage regions across the state coming together

and being like, All right.

Well, how did they do it in the wine industry?

The wine industry is always the go to or the coffee industry.

And we start looking at different models on how to achieve

success as a region or origin based product, but also have

many, many producers and not consolidate into a few big plans

that run a show, because both of those are not things that

our culture will ever be okay with.

Her and Humble, as long as I think this room exists and probably

your listeners.

And so one of the key pieces that we were able to find in

the last six years is Appalachians of origin, which, Interestingly

enough, comes from the wine industry.

I think we all can fairly agree with that.

And the average consumer would be like, Appalachians equal

wine. Yeah.

But when you start studying the history of it, you really

dive into the culture of various regions in France.

And what they were doing is they were going through exactly

the same crisis we are going through of going from being

very small regional producers and then facing global commoditization

and capitalism and feeling downward pressure from commodity

producing wine regions across the globe.

And so what they did is they decided to flip the script and

create what they call appalation of origin, which essentially

embed into policy or create law based on standards, practices

and varietals.

And so you can take your culture and how you do things and

the cultivars you use to do those things combined with the

natural environment.

And you can create a law that says nobody else can do it.

And so you essentially literally tie the value of your product

to the actual ground you’re growing in, which is the land

we own, which is our region’s ability to move forward.

And in my opinion, which is not lost on me that we’re sitting

with you folks as soil producers.

But I don’t think that there’s one or the other.

But for Humble County, at least in my opinion, and we’ll

see what this looks like into the future.

This is our number one policy piece that we’re working on

is having Appalachians directly tied to the ground and without

any any mix or adulterations mimicking off the French model.

So that’s really interesting to me.

And my understanding of Appalachians was, I would say, Rudimentary,

at best, compared to your description there, that was so

well spoken, and it really created a clear picture.

Thank you so much.

I’ve been working on that for so long.

And let me tell you, in the beginning, it was not it was

real bad.

And somebody who talks about this stuff all the time.

Yeah, that was really concise and a great way to kind of

digest it.

And for me, a big part of being in the pot and soil industry

is like, well, there’s places all over Humble County included,

and up and down the Coast where people can’t grow in their

native soils.

They have these lands.

They’ve been growing there.

They do have these unique environmental conditions.

They are part of this culture.

They are part of the whole process.

And because they’re importing their soils or did import their

soils at one time, even if they created a living soil or

are using all different techniques to maintain and nurture

that original soil, or whether they’re bringing it in fresh

every time.

It’s interesting to me that in a way that they’re precluded

from the ability to participate in this Appalachian, even

though that’s a big part of what they do currently, they’re

not. Right now, I’ll wrap that back and I totally hear you.

And I’ve spent a lot of time in a lot of rooms not as cool

as this.

This is the coolest room I have been in having a discussion

about Appalachians.

Typically, it’s like a conference room with no windows at

a trade show and a low.

Anyways.

So right now, just in the regulatory process, we’re in public

comment period.

So we don’t know what the final rules are going to look like.

We’ve been advocating for one way which is grown in ground

full Sun.

We have not.

And the agencies have not released those final rags.

And we right now, as it stands, the agency has been very

clear with us Department of Food and AG, that unless there

is a statutory requirement, meaning the legislature mandates

that the agency does this, it will not be a true terroir

based Appalachian program.

There’s a lot of poker chips on the table.

There’s a lot of card game to keep playing, and that’s what

we’re working on.

But even if we do, if we’re successful and we can encourage

our state Senator, Mr McGuire, who is a superb champion,

everybody should follow and vote and talk with our state

Senator. He’s amazing.

If we can get him to move legislation forward and there is

a baseline required of inground full Sun.

We haven’t gone as far to require it to be 100% native soil.

So that flexibility still could be embedded within the Appalachian,

which is owned and run by the farmers themselves.

If there is an appalation where there is, Let’s say he told

they’ve got these beautiful Luvia soils and the policy and

the ordinances have put them all in these floodplains and

out in homes.

They could say 100% native soil.

Sure.

But if you’re in Nevada County, where they’ve had historical

mining issues and they’ve got really dirty soils from metal,

heavy metals and legacy issues that are pre date cannabis

by 100 years, maybe 100 years, I could have got that wrong.

100 and 5,150.

Thank you.

We’re not advocating that there’d be that what we would say.

Yes, you need to be in the ground.

But what that composition looks like, that would be up to

them. Right.

And that’s where it gets tough, I guess with the stringent

testing that is on cannabis, it’s very different for wine

and for food.

That does create that kind of that question in the Center

there whether or not you can grow native in the native soil

and still pass Prop 65 test testing.

That’s definitely a game changer as far as the compare some

of that stuff harkens back to the timber industry and the

mining industry in the aerial herbicide spring and the legacy

impacts of 150 years of industrial mining, grazing and timber

operations. That’s what we have to deal with and clean up.

And I know the same thing from Monterey County, then they’re

going after their own Appalachians down there, and they’ve

got drift coming from Selena and Watsonville.

Watsonville is one of the most heavy polluted areas in the

state. Totally, totally.

We have tons of farmers calling us all the time saying, Hey,

I grew in the native soil.

My entire crop failed for seven pesticides, and there’s no

way that in the foreseeable future I can ever use my native

soils. And so that’s a really difficult thing.

And I could give you a little context of why we went there.

Yeah.

In the research that we’ve done to understand Appalachians,

which, again, tear is a French term.

And Americans, we don’t identify with terroir.

Even our wine appalation are essentially just circles.

They don’t have a standard associated with them like the

French do.

And so when we started looking at Appalachians for cannabis,

we really started.

Okay, production methods, because that’s what we’re talking

about here right now.

Are we talking about in soil?

Are talking about pots.

Are we talking about light Dep one, are we talking about

high intensity lighting?

Okay, now we’re talking about indoor.

Well, that’s a slippery slope.

And then when you start really looking at the history of

Prohibition, there’s a reason why we have indoor and that

is because the helicopters, no doubt straight up.

So now we’re looking at we’ve got global climate change,

the world’s burning.

We’ve got high intensity lighting.

We’ve got commercial commoditization of cannabis, where we’re

running acres of high intensity lighting.

Now we’ve got areas that are putting it in the ground that

have really contaminated soils.

Are we okay starting to roll back pesticide thresholds because

these areas of industrial agriculture want to commoditize

cannabis help.

No, I think it should go the other 1 1.

Totally.

So to that, we start looking about with the Appalachians,

like, okay.

Well, which production message should be allowed in here?

And how did the wine industry actually look at this?

And then you think about the wine industry, nobody’s growing

grapes inside because a helicopter is in a wine industry,

and they’re not putting in beds and they’re going putting

it on the bed.

And in fact, their entire marketing, regardless of if their

circles is based on the geology and the minerals and load.

So we went back, and this was actually where it got wicked

nerdy. We started trying to identify and understand because

we have a lot of mixed light.

One, not necessarily.

Two.

That’s a relatively new thing.

The cops used to be able to taking down 100,000 dollars greenhouse.

It was a way bigger deal than taking down some hoops.

Right.

So we didn’t have that commercialization that cut flour industry

down South up here.

Mlt, Let’s just put that aside.

That’s not really traditional, in my opinion, for the Emerald

Triangle. Agreed.

Right.

Okay.

So we can agree on that.

But now, depth, raise your hand.

If you spent hours pulling tarps, like, we can’t see the

hands, but we all have them in the air.

We do.

And then let me start thinking about that.

We start looking at that.

Okay.

Well, why will we pulling tarp?

Because we wanted more product, because we were, like, go

big right back to that whole thing.

I was talking about early beating the helicopters to not

before they started getting in the East Coast wanted the

gas, and the depths would pull them early.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

All the reasons like, well, we went back to the French, and

we were like, well, do you allow within your Appalachians

manipulations, which is essentially with flight a bit photoperiod,

Matt’s manipulation.

We are taking the natural environment, and we’re manipulating

it due to our economic benefit and our needs.

Right.

Planning, Auto flowers, we’re just going to put that over

there to help that that situation.

That’s not included.

That’s another episode, and I’m not going to be the one to

go into that.

Okay.

So Auto flowers, get the time out.

So we get in.

We’re going to the depths in France.

And at this point, we’re organized enough to hire professionals.

And we’ve got lawyers who have built and developed Appalachians

from across the country.

We have access to them within the United States.

Like, you can’t find people who understand Appalachians in

America better than the consultants we were working with,

which was Super fun, by the way.

Wow.

So we start asking them.

We’re like, Hey, can you manipulate great finds and still

being an appalation and whatever manipulations you have?

And so what our consultant is he reached out to his Appalachian

friends, which is like the smallest percentage of the people

on the planet are experts in this.

And of course, he speaks French because he’s amazing.

And he’s a unicorn and diving into the Ministry of Agriculture

in France, which is basically like the Department of Defense

equivalent in the United States, because it’s all about a

it’s all about craft.

It’s all about products.

It’s all about place in France.

So, of course, that agency, that’s where you go.

Those are the cool people.

And there was a case study where and it went to litigation

and went to court where some French grape producers were

pulling wanted to pull Frost cloth over their binds to ensure

that they could not lose their crop.

And it was absolutely vetoed.

Nope.

You cannot do this because it’s a slippery slope, because

that is now manipulating the terroir.

So this is why we put the debt and it has common significant

cost, because it’s been a hell of a struggle.

But we have consensus across the legacy producing organizations.

But go back to what we’ve been working on with Appalachian

is really a narrowing of exclusivity.

It is.

And that’s also why.

And that’s also kind of a different train of advocacy, because

mostly we work to try to bring as much benefit to as many

people as long as it’s based on the triple bottom line, protecting

the environment, ensuring health of the community, and then

having some economic viability.

We try to advocate for the most.

This is a whole different ball game.

We’re trying to advocate for the exclusivity of those who

can grow literally attached to the land they own, because

Appalachians are built for and by farmers.

This is not a top down.

This is a grass roots up opportunity.

And if you can get a group of farmers to come together, much

like HCG organize have like the will to get along and create

their own standards, practices and bridal.

You now created a law that says nobody else can ever do that.

Use that place name.

And we locked in the proprietary production methods of those

farmers, and it’s literally attached to their land.

And at the end of the day, we’re building this whole thing

so that Humble counties farmers can continue to pass down

for generations what they have been passed down for a couple

of generations.

Incredible.

The clarity that I just experienced on that whole topic is

amazing. I told you, it’s magic.

It really is.

And it’s such a huge in magic.

It’s a huge empowerment for the people and the community.

And again, place based.

It’s like this place is empowered in this way.

And I love it.

I only draw issue with the fact that there’s people that

have put in the equal time, energy and love that now are

somehow being precluded because the piece of land they bought

doesn’t have good soil.

That’s a slippery slope also.

And where do we look at sub Appalachians or sub categories

to include this interesting, really subculture of cannabis

growing in Humble?

Totally.

And I think there’s a couple of points to address that.

One.

This is a voluntary thing is you got to do this.

You don’t have to do your well, as it stands right now and

what we’re advocating for, we’ll see what the regulations

look like.

You wouldn’t have to transfer your entire farm into it.

You could have your tester Appalachian piece while you work

on soil issues or remediation.

Humble County is really lucky in that sense, is that we don’t

have to do as much as other parts of the state.

Those an industrial agricultural wastelands.

I don’t see this as a tool.

Yeah.

And this is an interesting part of our conversation on a

previous episode with The Dirty Business.

And Nate, the soils here are so, so varied just because of

the geology of the region.

Right.

There’s so many different kinds of soils.

And there are a lot of native soils that have heavy metal

issues. There are a lot of native soils that are contaminated

from mining.

They washed away that entire mountain out by Whiskey Town.

And there’s a lot of huge environmental damage out of the

mining and logging industry, as we already touched on.

And there’s people that started their farms, these legacy

farms long before anyone was looking with a microscope at

this. And that’s just a difficulty for me as an outsider

looking in.

It’s like, Wow, you did all the same things and you did them.

All right.

But it’s a slippery slope, though, because when you start

looking at okay, so now you’re in pots, now you’re pulling

tarp. Now you’ve got a greenhouse.

Now you got a mix light.

Now you’re indoor.

Where does the line?

Where is the line?

And this is while this is 100% the magic.

This is also the most debated.

I mean, I’ve nearly watched Blood viewed over this issue,

and we’re not done yet.

Right.

It’s like it’s wild.

But I have to commend and give so much appreciation to Janine

Coleman with the medesino appalation Project.

And she’s now launched Origins Counsel.

She is a peacemaker and a consensus builder.

I was on your team three years ago, and I was like, our heritage

farmers have been steep and deep in the Hills were soiled

are not available.

And then through regulation, land use, we were like, No,

you need to have prima.

That’s where the most environmentally sound place to do it.

Right.

And what are we going to do?

Like, this doesn’t work.

They need pot.

That’s what they’ve grown.

That’s what they do.

And I really I took a lot of heat on that one, mostly because

there’s alternative methods through regenerative agriculture,

through Google building, and through a community that’s really

bringing back that traditional approach that hasn’t, I think,

really penetrated a lot of Humble County because we’ve been

set and lived in this go big commodity.

Don’t get caught.

Don’t put the time into that garden because you’re going

to move it over here next year because that one’s blah, blah,

blah to you got to move totally.

And Dragon buckets under the trees is how you stay away from

the helicopter.

So it’s really fascinating to look at how prohibition and

policy influence our practices.

We are now at the point where you don’t have to do that.

If you are in the legal industry and you have your setbacks

and you can send off DFW and they come at you for various

issues that aren’t real.

Now, we can really, truly go back to practices that I think

we’ll promote that.

And then at the end of the day, not everybody is going to

make it.

Not everybody is going to be able to be in an appalation.

And in fact, just because you can be in an appalation or

you’re in the ground doesn’t mean the successive one.

The number one thing that we’ve learned through working with

the various wine unicorns is that Appalachians die on the

Vine from a lack of being able to work together.

And I think that goes back to Nat and it finding common ground

in a blueberry Bush patch.

We were on the other side of the table.

I had strategy meetings on how to go and have a beer with

this wonderful woman and a blueberry patch.

And so Humble County, in my opinions, worst enemy is Humble

County, and our ability to work together is the only way

we’re going to be able to see this through.

And I think it’s really important to be able to sit down

and have these conversations in an environment where I feel

comfortable asking these questions and looking through a

microscope at what it is that’s important to me and important

to the farmers.

I often consider myself an advocate for our clients, and

that’s really a big part of what I do in sales is going to

production going to the company and being like, Hey, our

customers need this.

Can I get this?

Can I do this?

Hey, can we change this around?

Because we’ve got this really awesome person, and they need

our help to bring this together and advocate for each other.

Even though we may have slightly differing views, it’s important

to be able to get up, move yourself over and sit in someone

else’s seat for a minute, because when you take an object

and you put it in the Center room and line people up all

around it, we’re all seeing the same object from a different

angle. And what’s blue on one side.

You may not see any blue from across the room.

It’s red over here.

So to be able to get that full picture and really think about

it from somebody else’s perspective is what’s going to drive

this camaraderie and help elevate Humble in general?

Totally.

You know, just to go back to something Terra said about the

in ground as currently, the standard is not that that has

to be native soil people, depending on what standards are

developed through each an amended soil, whatever that’s to

be determined by each individual farmer group that comes

together. Appalachians There will never be a Humble County.

Appalachian.

It’s precluded from being a County line.

So there might be sub Appalachians, Eel River or Metal or

Lost Coast or Willow Creek or whatever name they want to

call it.

It can cross County Mendicino, Southern Humble, depending

on water shed.

It’s really going to be about a group of people that come

together that find common interests.

What we do have Appalachians Everybody wants to talk about

Appalachians. It’s a sexy thing.

And ultimately, what Appalachians is is a tool to market

your product.

And if you’re actually successful, you need a whole bunch

of money to do marketing, and you need even more money if

you’re actually successful to defend it with the lawyers.

Right.

That is success.

That is Scala lawyers across the world.

So in your name, of course.

But we are so far away from Appalachian development 5 10,

15, 20 years in some of these ways, but we’re really excited

to talk about it.

But what we have right now is protection for County of origin,

which is Humble County cannabis.

Humble County.

Right now, all counties are protected from misuse of the

name, whether it’s you Mendicino or Trinity or Yolo.

Humble were protected.

So all products in Humble are protected for cannabis trademark.

You’re not allowed to say it’s from Humble if it’s not from

Humble. And so we have these protections now.

And and I just want to go back like Humble County Growers

Alliance. We don’t just represent growers or farmers.

That’s so we can stay safe, mostly with banking.

Right.

I pick up on so many of our clients on so many levels, we

don’t even touch it plan.

We don’t touch the plant.

We just experienced the fun of that.

But we represent the entire industry, which is cultivators

manufacturers like distributors, retail testing labs and

all licensed tight or all production indoor outdoor mixed

light. Someday we will be the Humble County Cannabis Alliance

some day when the banks will let us.

But for the most part, we represent cultivators at about

70% of our membership or cultivators.

We have about 320 licensed cannabis operators in Humble County.

That I just want to say and give a huge shout out.

We wouldn’t be sitting here today if it was not for our members

if it was not for those individuals.

And we’ve had the blessed opportunity to be able to meet

them, hear their stories, hear their hopes and dreams and

fears, and, you know, help coach them through staying in

and then coaching us that reciprocal education of what do

you need and are trying to do our best to listen to what

they need.

And then sometimes saying, No, maybe that’s not the best

idea. Or how do we work together?

And through the development of HCA, we’ve really tried our

hardest to create a Democratic, transparent participatory

organization. We’re a nonprofit.

We operate like a co op, but we’re not a co op.

We’re owned by our members.

For our members, it’s completely voluntary.

We’re working to make sure that they can keep going and that

we can see as many of these independent businesses PROCEED.

And to take that back to Humble County Cannabis, we already

have these protections.

And Humble County, our supervisors and our bureaucracy created

Project Trellis a handful of March of last year.

And there was a lot of conversations that had been happening

over years.

That got to the point of the supervisor saying, I’ve got

this great idea to reinvest those tax dollars back into the

industry. They didn’t just magically think of that on their

own. I bet they’re great.

They are great.

They did listen, and they got a lot on their plate because

of water, but they don’t always drink, but 89% of the time

they do.

We have a fairly functional tax system in Humble County.

I know no one likes paying taxes, no one likes paying taxes,

but the County has agreed to reinvest a portion of those

tax dollars back into the industry.

They’re coming out and said, We’ve got this Project Trellis,

which is marketing for Humble Cannabis and Equity Peace and

Micro Grants.

And I’d like to talk just a little bit about what is that

Humble marketing campaign?

And what could it be?

Because while Appalachian is a marketing strategy for a little

group of people that are following these exact standard practice

varietals, and someday they’ll have that niche Stags leap.

Sure.

Right now we have Humble Cannabis.

And what can we do as a community really soon to market ourselves

now? And so we don’t get bogged down into the horizontal

hostility of what in ground in ground.

I’m really interested in your opinion on this, too, because

we market under Maiden Humble, and it’s something that we’re

really passionate about as well.

We produce here.

We use local employees, we support the local economy, support

all the local trucking businesses.

And we feel like it is so important that we all focus.

If we’re going to use the Humble name, it needs to be with

integrity and all that Bull clothing.

They make sure that says Hustle with integrity.

And I feel like that really to to this Humble entity that

we’re building currently.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean, really like, the Humble County cannabis story and

history and myth has been building for decades.

But on the government side of things, we went from prohibited

to regulated in the last six years, and now we’re entering,

and we are the only County or jurisdiction that I know of

in the entire world that is actually now creating a supportive

Avenue through Project Trellis.

And one of the key pieces is this marketing arm, which has

had some hiccups due to COVID budgetary issues and whatnot.

But really, like, the thought and intent behind it is to

continue to well, to define that story and really start to

enter the minds of consumers for the first time with marketing

a marketing effort.

I mean, we have an international brand without spending a

dollar on traditional marketing.

That’s crazy.

It’s amazing.

It’s unreal.

It really is such an opportunity, and it’s ours to screw

up to.

Pressure is on.

And I don’t mean Natalie, and I mean, this community, sure.

And it’s not going to be an easy endeavor to put the identity

of this community into content by any means.

And so However it rolls out, it needs to be done with the

utmost integrity.

And that includes absolute, utter, complete, in my opinion,

in our opinion, transparent public process to develop that

because it’s not going to be a marketing agency that comes

in here.

And it’s like, well, we kind of like what you think.

We kind of like what you think, and really we’re just going

to do what we think because we’re smarter than you, which

has happened all the time in the last six years later, if

I had a dollar for every time somebody.

And no offense for the three white men in here, but for a

white need to walk up to me and be like, so, sweetheart,

let me tell you how Humble County is going to crush.

And I’m like, Oh, do tell, please.

Bringing bringing you venture capitalists like, thank you

so much for letting me know that we have something special.

Oh, my gosh.

Anyway, so nonetheless, it really does need to come from

the community.

However, this effort rolls out and we don’t know what it’s

going to look like.

It needs to have a awesome amount of meetings, which we love

to do in Humble.

We love to have meetings.

We love.

We love them.

I wish you to meetings a day or hour or several hours late.

Absolutely.

So it needs to be, like, spread out.

There needs to be visual, but there needs to be a lot of

public process because the identity of the Humble County

cannabis industry is not owned by me, Nataline, you, you,

you, you or any of these businesses.

It’s collective and nobody owns it, and it’s part of our

culture. And so However it rolls out, it’s going to be interesting.

I encourage everybody to participate, and hopefully we don’t

like the County and and everybody does.

I love that you said that you don’t own it.

You don’t own it.

I don’t own it.

But we all have to take a sense of self ownership to maintain

this together and encourage that self ownership of each other.

And like, Hey, Let’s stand up and do this right.

I’m going to help build the bridge for you to cross.

I need you to help build the bridge for me to cross, which

is really a big part of why I think we’re all here today

together is that we’ve seen this of each other and of our

community, and we’re participating again through very different

avenues with a very similar goal.

And that’s what we have to do to work together.

So it’s really cool that that’s what you do every day is

looking at this from a leadership role, looking at the bureaucratic

side, looking at the semi Democratic grower community side

and really tying it all together.

It’s Super interesting to me the disadvantages that Humble

County has geographically on top of the PTSD that a lot of

our growers here in this County have in comparison to the

rest of the state.

There’s so many new players that get to jump in and in a

different place that they weren’t in it three years ago.

They never got to experience running through BlackBerry bushes

or on a steep Hill sidelines helicopter following you, and

they just jump in.

This is all just a clean slate, a new game for them.

And there is a disadvantage in certain aspects of that for

the County.

I would spin it around.

Yeah, I agree.

But that happens with community happens when we work together

in our advantages, our history and our story.

It can never be duplicated or replicate.

And those same dudes that are coming and telling me how Humble

County is gonna do it, are the same people just getting into

it that are the same people who’ve never experienced exactly

what you said and never could and never can, because that’s

history. And I think it’s our responsibility collectively

to tell that story because it’s so important again, back

to the very beginning of this conversation, what Humble County

has gone through, the war on drugs was a war on people.

And I think that there’s an opportunity for this marketing

endeavor to be therapeutic and tell our story collectively.

And sometimes I push back on it.

We’re going to be all bumblebees and rainbows and permaculture

and not it was gritty.

It was hard.

It was a it was a war literally was.

And the only way to not repeat a war is to record it in history

and tell the story of it true.

And so that’s what I hope personally, at least not that has

nothing to do with what’s going to happen.

I haveno idea what’s going to happen, but that’s what I hope

happens well.

And also sharing the part of the story on a positive light,

the back to land movement, back to nature of the 60?

S, the Digger family.

That whole movement gave birth to all of this.

We’ve talked about it in past episodes where it’s changed

the landscape across the country as far as how we treat our

food. And now all of a sudden, organic food is something

that really in a lot of ways, it started right here in this

little chunk of Northern California.

Absolutely.

And it’s just completely changed the entire game.

And I feel like with things like Murder Mountain that just

happened that came out a year and a half ago, that’s a perspective

of the cannabis industry here in Humble County and in Northern

California that most people around the country, this is what

they associate with.

And it’s so not accurate as a very small, tiny little morsel

of this County.

There’s so much good in this County, so much community, so

much love, so much grassroots.

So just shine on.

That, I think, is where the community comes together and

says, we are not Murder Mountain.

We’re not criminals.

We might have been treated like outlaws, but we’re really

good people that are interested in growing our community,

living off of the land and living naturally and happy and

loving and compassionate.

We were going to write a letter to that guy who made Murder

Mountain care.

He was thinking about part two.

I heard that I’m like, no, you’re not in back.

Yeah.

I heard that there was a talk about a long history of his

work. Body of work is centered in very dark criminal storylines.

And so he naturally gravitated to that one, but he was able

to sell it.

Sure was.

And that’s part of the thing that I think ties back to what

you’re saying, Rick, is we need to refocus the lens.

Yeah.

Have you guys seen the show Chef’s Table on Netflix?

I have it.

Oh, my God.

It’s one of the best.

I love food.

I’m a foodie.

But I’m here.

Yes, definitely.

Check out Chef’s Table.

And how do we get that set of directors?

And they travel around the world and looking at the terroir

of Peruvian Mountain potatoes and how the chefs are bringing

that down to the Avangard restaurants and Lima, Peru.

And, like, they go all around the world and they look at

amazing chefs and amazing food and it’s always food and people

in place.

That’s great.

And how it’s provided to consumers.

And so it really has this very natural tie in.

I’m like cannabis and people in place and products humble.

Like, how do we get back to taking culture and art and Rivers

and activities and recreation?

It’s like but I am going to flag, though the Murder Mountain

piece. Well, I totally believe it was blown out.

And he was very creative with his production.

Those events happened.

Absolutely.

Those are a direct reflection, not on the community or the

culture, but prohibition.

And we don’t tell that story.

Prohibition will continue in other places as it is.

There’s people in our country still going life in prison

right now for nothing.

There’s people in other countries losing their lives because

of this plant still.

So we have to somehow Chef’s Table with some reality of the

impact on Prohibition and what that does to communities that

are as cool as Lars.

Right.

Well, as evident by Chef’s Table, as with the story, as with

the food, as with the Canada source matters, where is this

story coming from?

And what perspective, again, is it being told from?

Because we do need to tell these stories and we need to bring

people together to share them, because even in this room,

we’re learning a lot about each other in this moment.

And we’re strengthening the Humble County movement right

now, just by this conversation within the four of us.

And I think that’s where the source matters so much, whether

it’s food, music and ground full Sun, it makes a difference.

And that’s the interesting thing about a lot of what you’re

saying, too, about building Kugle and all of these other

regenerative concepts.

They’re doing a lot of the same things we’re doing in our

soil building.

They’re bringing in other sources of organic matter.

It might not even be a native tree.

They’re cutting in totally be totally great.

And in our advocacy, too, we’re recommending in ground during

the flowering stage.

Right.

So there’s a difference there.

We’re not asking.

And I should have brought that up.

So we’re not we’re not saying you need to plant the seed

in native soil that has nothing else in it.

We’re not saying that it’s very difficult.

It’s very difficult and that we’re trying to be as flexible

as possible, but not end up sliding into sure, it’s a warm

home. And to the point.

Okay.

This is where I’ll get a little mouthy.

Industrial agriculture is not good for our planet.

Our planet is catching on fire, literally.

We’ve got polar bears and we’ve got koala bears, and they’re

both at the top of the bottom, and they’re both struggling.

Whether they’re drowning or catching up here, it’s a mass

extinction. And we’re coming around the corner.

I see human not going well.

So what are we going to do to incentivize practices and that

protect our environment, but then have economic benefit.

And that’s really what appalation comes to.

And if we slide down, okay, well, it’s possible.

But now we’re incentivizing indoor.

And while we represent indoor, indoor has huge part of our

history here in Humble.

And arguably that’s why we have our genetic library micro

indoors, not Coachella indoors.

I think that’s a big part of it.

And I’m sorry to rant on that.

I don’t know.

The industrial agriculture.

I really don’t have many feelings about the inability for

folks who live in Selena, Santa Barbara, or Yellow who have

had industrial agriculture and their communities not be able

to access Appalachians.

Like, I don’t have I don’t care.

You have a lot of feelings.

I have a lot of feelings sections.

They’re not because your soils are contaminated by decision

making to mass produce food in a way that has impacted our

globe and impacts our bodies.

And so therefore you can’t have this amazing tool.

I don’t care.

I see where you’re coming from and from the opposite.

Devil’s advocate.

I really do agree.

But there are people just like us in those places that came

up as a victim of these circumstances and our suffering the

same way as we are from these decisions made by their grandparents

and parents and their community, and they’re trying to change

it, and they’re trying to get into the system and break it

from the inside.

And these are tools that also are very effective at that

side of things.

So having that tool as a launch pad for ideas and to begin

to change the perspective and perception of the community

around them, I think that’s an important tool, too.

And it’s all about striking balance.

And I agree totally hear that, too.

And like, good on them.

That’s awesome.

Grow some food that’s organic.

Do what you can right now.

You can produce a crop, not use those chemicals that your

grandparents used, and hopefully eke out a living versus

now growing cannabis.

But you’re probably not even being able to hit the testing

thresholds. Yeah.

And to that are hard line.

We’re not going to reduce our testing thresholds because

industrial agriculture can’t keep up with the cannabis industry

producing clean products like that’s not a traditional organic

agriculture. Totally.

Keep up with the testing.

Totally.

But again, hardline, hardline.

I agree.

Like, why would we go reduce the safety because of best practices

there’s ability to remediate soil over time while still producing

food and still producing a product versus lowering a threshold

so that you can get into the cannabis space if there’s a

smarter aspect of it, where you don’t want to go back and

give into the practices that they’ve been using on our own

food, where we can actually set the table for what we think

should be standard across anything that’s investable any

consumable cannabis is safer than or exactly.

That’s where we need to go, not roll it back.

Coming from looking at regulating cannabis, where I was in

20 14, which was like, we can use 20 century ideals and understanding

of climate change and globalization and wealth inequality,

and we can create this regulation structure.

I had been working with regulation laws that were 150 years

old for timber mining and grazing that hadn’t been changed

and right, a hundred years.

So it was really exciting.

And I looked at this and I was like, Okay, as cannabis, the

industry was willing to accept a higher standard of environmental

protection of testing laws than any other industry had ever

been. And I somewhat naively was like, Oh, maybe the rest

of the industry will step up to cannabis.

Right?

They’ve got massive lobbies.

They don’t want to.

They don’t want to.

But for food and for everything else, it’s like, we could.

I mean, we’re growing cannabis, not pulling water out of

the streams for five months out of the year.

Other agricultural industries could do the same.

Santa Barbara, they’re looking at subsistence groundwater

depletion. They’re looking at salt water inundation, like,

massive pesticide issues.

And it’s like, should you be cultivating there, like, in

your now transitioning food food production areas into cannabis

flowers? They were flower agriculture because they got decimated

by sales.

Is food motion because commodity on commodity is a race to

the bottom.

But Selena Selinas was food production.

That’s the salad bowl.

It’s suffering.

And it’s like, but if we can grow cannabis, do it clean,

store water and protect the fish in the wildlife.

Like, why can’t other industries do the same?

We’re leading by example.

And I think that’s an important note.

That, like, we can do it.

We are doing it.

There are people that are doing it every single day right

now, and there’s time where from the times where it feels

like we’re not.

But Unfortunately, it’s a slower process that we’d all like,

sometimes stepping back and looking back 20 years ago, 10

years ago, we’re making a difference.

It’s happening.

The cannabis industry is no doubt affecting how we grow everything.

Like, we talked about last episode, working with big AG companies

at some of the trade shows and stuff that we work with, and

seeing how that over time, they’re actually starting to kind

of lighten up on how they view us and maybe even open up

their minds a little bit to learn from us and how they can

actually not kill their topsoil.

The planet burning up.

They don’t have a choice.

I agree.

They don’t have a choice.

The luxury we have to debate Appalachians is a luxury.

It is a privilege.

It’s a privileged luxury, and it will not be here in the

policy world.

In my opinion, in the next 20 years, we won’t have indoor.

Our planet is dying.

I don’t like, I’m with you.

Humble Trinity.

Mendocino are able to grow clean weed under current conditions

because of our unique geography, because of small artisanal

cultivation, relatively small.

We don’t have the pesticide drift issues that other areas

have. And so in a large part to soil companies who’ve been

producing quality products that we’ve been able to totally

breed these amazing plants for generations with, you guys

play a huge part in it in half.

Historically, although you were on the other side of the

law enforcement a little bit, we’re like, don’t tell them

we’re going and getting a load of soil, cover it with the

tar head out.

The Hill has been on that side so much, too.

You’re shoving the trunk full and closing it driving around

block. I came up in the Midwest where you couldn’t even go

to the gross store without being followed home by police.

And that fueled a big part of what led me into this industry

and advocating for change and advocating for using waste

streams and eliminating pesticides and buying Bull and not

just bags.

It’s a huge part of what we do.

We encourage that all the time.

You guys have been crushing that.

And it’s also taking these basic elemental regenerative farming

concepts and trying to package it for the people that don’t

have the luxury and privilege that we do to spend this time

and put the energy in and create these things.

And I think that ties in to a lot of what you’re doing, as

well as providing a benefit with the luxuries that you have

to put this time and energy into developing this community

in the way you do it.

Yeah.

So I was just kind of tying back into something that we were

talking about earlier, where the County tax, what they’ve

been talking about, ways of actually putting that back into

the cannabis industry here locally.

Last year, at some point, I was down in the Coachella Valley

for a big cannabis conference, and we had Lori Ajax there,

the head of the BBC BC Potamos as the head of the CDA.

They had a great panel there, some of it, obviously.

I shrugged and rolled my eyes at and some of it was pretty

informative. There was a point where Fiona Ma had mentioned

that there is money allotted from the state to go to certain

areas of the state to help, along with cannabis licensing,

permitting, education.

And it was actually brought up.

They actually mentioned Humble County at this meeting, which

being from Humble County, was probably the only one in this

giant room, made me very happy that it was even mentioned.

Have we seen any of that come our way?

What do you think about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, there’s various funding mechanisms for various programs

depending on which part of the government, state government

you’re in, which is big in California, is the fifth largest

economy in the world.

We have incredible amount of diversity from Northern California

to Southern California, from people to places to cannabis

to everything.

We have a bureaucracy that matches that.

Our time in Sacramento really reflects just the scope of

how big California is.

And at least for me, it it has reflected on that my time

spent there.

So as far as state funding that is coming back to the cannabis

industry here in Humble, I think the one that really stands

out the most to me is the funding on the equity front.

And that goes back into we were prohibited then we were regulated,

and now we’re supported.

And really, the equity piece personally, for me, really reflects

a nod and acknowledgement to the War on Drugs, which, again,

was a war on people.

It also shows that the state’s willingness to help smaller

business owners move forward, who may or may not have been

able to access the education that was needed to be able to

become a viable business owner, meaning that you maybe you

didn’t grow up in a community that set you off to College

to get a business degree.

Maybe you grew up in a community that kept you you grew up

on a farm and you grew cannabis or you grew up in a community

for in a city that you hustled, and that’s how your family

made money.

Again, Prohibition really kept businesses small, and that’s

what we were.

We were businesses when we didn’t even know we were businesses.

And so the equity program is a nod to that.

Humble County to date has been awarded two different buckets

from two different parts of the government.

So they come with different stipulations.

And I won’t go into the nitty gritty Granual of that.

But there’s a couple of million dollars on the upwards.

I think it’s about 3.5.

I could be wrong on that round 3.5 that is going to be allocated

back into the industry in various ways.

The scope of that looks like direct funding.

You can apply through Project Trellis as an equity applicant

and then get funding directly to you.

There’s going to be an ability to have a reduction in fees.

And then there’s also part of the program which is required

is that there will be support services and education brought

in that you can access if you qualify.

So the major step forward, I think, for California for cannabis.

And again, this is where cannabis to what Nataline was saying

earlier on the environmental front line, we’re holding a

threshold of standards in our own industry that we really

would like to see in other industries.

And uniquely, the War on Drugs impacted people of color in

the cities and really impacted the Emerald Triangle, both

in various different ways.

But a lot of specifically cannabis related and law enforcement

actions came out of the early 19 Seventies, and Nixon going

after people who opposed him and created the War on Drugs,

which was an utter and complete failure.

So, Yeah.

And then COVID hit.

So we’ll see if that funding continues.

There’s state and the County in the country and the globe

or under as far as the government goes under in dire Straits

that they’ve never seen before.

So it’ll be interesting to see how this rolls out.

Do you think that money will actually be pulled back a little

bit, possibly anything demoit’s not narrowly focused on cannabis

going forward, although the funding I will say that the governor

Newsom was decided to keep the equity funding for this year.

So with what we consider the May revise, and the legislature

is debating that right now, there is still a bucket of funding

for equity programs across the state.

Is that something that members of HCA can actually go to

you if they need help applying for those grants or to see

if they can access some of that money?

That’s something that you would help navigate.

And but we’re less consultant and were more advocates.

So we’ve been really advocating to the County that they keep

the application process Super streamlined and simple, unlike

the land use ordinance and the permitting process, so that

you don’t actually have to hire anybody to apply.

That’s our goal.

That’s another roadblock.

That being said, it’s like one of the buckets that we really

endeavored to do is HCA.

And I made a joke earlier.

We have a sister organization, the Humble Community Business

Development Center.

Hcbc, which is a true 501 C three nonprofit.

Hca is also a nonprofit, but we’re not tax exempt.

We work for the benefit of our members.

So we’re very insular.

Whereas HCBC works for the industry as a whole, there’s no

membership, and we’re able to access some County government

funding to be able to provide educational resources to the

industry, whether you’re a member or not.

And part of that is to be able to give the business skills.

Hr OSHA, We joke 2,016 was all about land use compliance,

and people come to us and they’re like other people from

out of the Earth, like land use compliance.

Like that was so 20 16 now it’s business compliance.

How are you following business profession code laws that

all other businesses in California have to follow?

How are we helping empower our industry to have the skills

they know how to cultivate?

And we were saying there’s a difference between these people

that come into Humble County.

They’re like, I’m going to buy a piece of land, I’m going

to be a grower.

Maybe they’ve got a great business.

Acumen, But they don’t know how to cultivate.

They don’t know how to handle the plant.

We’ve got an industry that knows how to handle the plant,

but maybe not the best business.

Acumen, Maybe they don’t actually know how to use spreadsheets.

Keeping track of written records was a complete no, no, absolutely.

For a real long time.

And now everything has to be meticulously recorded.

So it’s like understanding these processes, which also includes,

like a train, like this project Trali Micro grants.

So we talk a lot about process with the County.

It’s like make sure that this is a two page like, you shouldn’t

have to hire someone.

You shouldn’t have to know how to write a Foundation grant,

make sure that there’s a pool of money big enough so that

you can maybe perhaps less competition where you have to.

And because we represent so many members, we can’t really

we do our best to also be Switzerland and not take sides,

but to make sure that they have the best tools so that they

can present themselves as best that they can.

Otherwise, we’d be like, we support everybody that’s here.

And I really love that you touched on how the war on drugs

and previous enforcement disproportionately affected people

of color and people of financial struggles.

The impoverished people of color, people without a voice

or an Avenue to really kind of break out of the system got

trapped in it.

I really love that you are focusing on bridging that gap

forward and trying to make it accessible without all of these

roadblocks, because education affects those same people so

drastically they don’t have they aren’t given the tools that

they need to focus and break through these hurdles of regulatory

compliance, building a business plan of getting into this

business at this level.

And when it was so oppressed, they could get in with nothing

because it was so small scale.

But then they were just squashed and swept aside and then

given felonies so they can’t participate in the legal market

now. So it’s really cool to me that you’re trying to make

that accessible for people that have had those struggles

historically that’s that really resonates to me, coming from

the Midwest and watching that oppression disproportionately

affect other people.

And, you know, as an adult, looking back and recognizing

some of the privilege that a lot of us have that we’ve already

touched on in this episode, that not everyone has the luxury

to sit around and talk about how to make things better.

They are focusing on just getting the next meal for them

and their family.

So kudos to you for making the accessible to people that

need it that want it, that have contributed their heart and

soul to move this forward.

I think that’s a really important thing that we all work

together as a community to uplift those that tried and are

being still oppressed in so many ways.

Absolutely.

And it goes back in.

How do we do that?

We can agree we need to.

But how do we actually implement work that makes a change?

And so we focus our advocacy on the equity program, or we

work on Appalachians or, Alternatively, in some of the work

we do with the market development, what we call market development

is reaching back out to communities who have been impacted

by the war on drugs and rebuilding our supply chains.

I mean, Let’s just be real.

Humble County, the Emerald Triangle has been shipping weed,

selling weed, moving weed, whatever all the way across the

country. And those supply chains have been disrupted by legalization.

And so how can we rebuild for in this legal world within

the state of California are connections we had before who

are now coming into the process.

And a lot of them come from communities who have been impacted

by the war on drugs as well.

Oakland, La Santa Rosa.

I mean, it goes on and on and on.

And so reaching out to the equity applicants in the various

urban areas and cities and rebuilding our supply chains is

foremost and forefront on some of the work that we’ve done

in the past.

And we will continue to do, which goes back to DC money coming

up and being like, I know how it’s going to work.

No, you don’t.

No, you don’t.

Actually don’t.

It’s really inspirational to see that dedication in that

fight. We really appreciate it.

People cool people hanging out with other cool people.

Yeah.

What do you see as far as the future goes home County legal

cannabis, federally decriminalized and game fucking long.

Fucking love that optimism.

No, I’m with you.

I agree.

And I say that all the time.

Sometimes we just got to rebuild what we had and do it in

a way that protects the environment, protects our community,

protect our businesses.

And I honestly think that if we can launch and be able to

get our marketing efforts out and then at the same time,

be able to really start building Appalachians, the soul of

this community continues to want to thrive.

Like we’re unstoppable this guy in it.

Absolutely.

We build our relationships in New York.

Yeah.

In Chicago.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And then on top of that, but do good, do it.

Well.

So we’re not just trying to make money, but using this platform

that we have and the voice that we have to tell the story

and ensure it never happens again, which is the war on drugs

in the war on people.

Yeah.

And if we can do that and knowing that we’re providing something

that is considered an expressed as medicine, it’s not absolutely.

The hippie high, the 70?

S, it’s got a medicinal factor.

Part of it’s just calming people down, making your thought

process just a little more and you’ll fine tuned.

I mean, whatever it is, I think that it’s healing for everyone

a little differently, but it all places has its place.

Absolutely.

I feel like that’s one thing that separates Humbolt County

from a lot of the rest of the world of cannabis, even now

in the legal market so many years after 2 15, we still call

it medicine.

We still feel it’s medicine.

We still believe it’s medicine.

We still use it as medicine.

And to use the culture we build around it as medicine for

the community, I think, really pays homage to the plant that’s

done so much for all of us.

I couldn’t agree more.

And I think the key to success with that is ensuring we have

as many farmers as possible because the genetic diversity

that these Hills in this Emerald triangle holds, it’s unfathomable.

Like, when we get to actually study and research this plan

and really look at the various different medicinal uses to

it, we are the Amazon.

Yes.

And so we have a responsibility not only to take care of

the environment and provide back to our community and be

a good business, but we have a responsibility to keep her

alive because she’s kept us alive and keep the diversity

alive. We do not need to head down the industrial agriculture

monoculture. We’re just going to grow like, Hallelujah.

So it’s so important that we ensure as many farmers have

success as possible because our farmers do it naturally.

You can’t I don’t know.

It’s so interesting to be like, okay, well, the market really,

really just want o.

That was kind of a dark period.

I feel like I really just kind of sucked.

Okay.

It wasn’t cool.

And now I feel like we’ve come out of that a little bit and

look how many different cultivars and varieties.

And I think to your comment about Instagram, how exciting

it is to see that farmer finally talking to that farmer wanting

to cross it with that that farmers mothers genetics from.

I mean, it’s just unstoppable and so cool.

Well, from the darkness, there must come out of light.

And that’s really, I think well said.

That was a dark period where people thought they had to look

to Big AG for inspiration on how to survive in the cannabis

world. And we’re coming out of that and saying, no, big AG

needs to look to us totally for how to survive on this planet.

Exactly.

You nailed it.

I’m going to use that.

Can I use that?

It’s yours.

Thank you.

Absolutely awesome.

If it helps one person, can we make a bumper sticker?

Sign me up.

And I don’t actually have a bumper sticker, but I would put

that on my car the way you delved into that genetic, you

know, that was that huge.

That was told to me that didn’t just come about.

I had a a woman who I consider a hero, and I won’t say her

name right now.

Come to me in a way that was like, she came to humble, and

she was I need to meet with you.

And I was like, I can’t meet with you.

I’ve got all these things to do.

And she was like, no, I got to meet with you.

And I was like, okay.

And she sat me down and was like, you don’t understand.

What you are doing is not about economic development, role,

economic development or cannabis farmers.

You guys are holding the keys to the medical future in your

Hills. Don’t screw it up.

Wow.

Yeah.

I was like, so heavy load.

That’s true.

Now this leads me down a road that could take us to a whole

another episode and I know we’re about the end of our time,

so I want to say thank you again, but that is the wave of

the future is isolating these genetics that have come here

from all over the world because we were the place we were

the incubation Chamber, if you will, for all of these genetics

to come from all over the world, these land race genetics

from Africa and Afghanistan and Thailand, Thailand, Middle

East, the tropics, the auto flowers and router Alyss from

the high regions all over the world.

We have the keys, like you said.

And as we start to kind of re emerge from the shadows and

come together, that is the future is the genetics.

And we’re going to touch on this in some future episodes.

We’ve got some amazing breeders here that we’re going to

be bringing on.

So maybe we’ll get you back to join us with one of these

breeders. And no, no, I don’t join in those.

I listen.

Well, the breeders are in a room.

I’m quiet.

They fascinate me.

They put some time in, but we all have something to learn

from each other.

And that’s where I think the Royal Grown Radio format is

going to continue to blossom.

And we really appreciate you joining us here today, because

thank you.

We’re going to keep connecting these dots.

We’re going to keep bringing it out there to the world, and

we’re going to do our best to change things for the better.

Hell, Yeah.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having us Thank you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

We’ll see you next time on Royal Grown Radio.

We’ll explore the magical and fulfilling world of gardening

with blessed Flower Farms founder Tara Mahoney.

On this episode, Tara explains the framework for a healthy

garden, a spiritual human to plant relationship, and the

overall importance of good vibes.