Skymint Brands announced its establishment of Skymint Farms, a 200-acre sungrown cannabis farm nestled in the Huron-Manistee National Forest and focused on the values of regenerative farming, sustainable agriculture, premium cannabis cultivation, and community enrichment.
"Michigan is known for its 3,000 acres of wine grape vineyards and nearly 10 million acres of farmland that give our state a dynamic food and agriculture industry. With Skymint Farms, we are on a mission to additionally put Michigan on the map for cultivating some of our nation's best sungrown cannabis," says Skymint Brands' CEO and co-founder Jeff Radway.
Joining Skymint Brands' two state-of-the-art, sustainable cultivation facilities, Skymint Farms aims to receive Sun+Earth status within the next two years. The seal certifies cannabis brands that farm using beyond organic methods, holistically, responsibly, and regeneratively for the well-being of all people, farmers, and the planet.
Skymint Farms ensures that its cannabis is grown using the sun as the primary source of power, rain water as the primary source of irrigation as well as crop rotation, intercropping, and cover crops to create a nutrient-rich living soil. Within the next two years, Skymint Farms will additionally include grazing animals to make the farm truly biodynamic.
"Elon Musk once said in a TED Talk, 'We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky called the sun. You don't have to do anything. It just works'," says James Barr, Skymint Farms' lead cultivator and project overseer. "Natural light is much more complex than what even the best indoor lights can mimic. Cannabis loves the sun and expresses itself very differently when farmed outdoors. Cannabinoid and terpene production is greater, and the plant is more resilient."
Not only does Skymint Farms aspire to do right by the land and the environment but it also aspires to do right by Michiganders by cultivating community. Its cultivation site is in Lake County, one of the poorest counties in Michigan, and Skymint Farms provides nearly 30 year-round farm jobs on its beautiful rural oasis.
Adds Radway, "Community is at the core of our company ethos. At Skymint, we wholeheartedly believe that cannabis has a meaningful role to play in bettering people's lives, hence our motto that happy plants make happy people. But foundational to the pursuit of happiness is food security, and in Detroit, 1 in 6 remain hungry. There's no better way to nurture and grow community than to literally help feed it, which is why we're proud to partner Skymint Farms with Forgotten Harvest this holiday season."
To immediately address the food deserts surrounding metro Detroit, Skymint Farms has joined forces with Forgotten Harvest, a food rescue organization that distributes 45 million pounds of food to Detroiters each year. Skymint Farms will sponsor Forgotten Harvest's annual Hope for the Holidays event to provide holiday meal boxes to 2,000 Michigan families — some 6,000 individuals — over the course of just three days in December.
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