On a warm mid-March morning, cannabis farmer Justin Merkel stands on a muddy edge overlooking the two-acre patch of grassland. This plot makes up the farmland of his company, Lit 420.
In the summer months, about 1,800 cannabis plants dot the grassy landscape, each one carefully pruned, watered, and tended by hand. A new season is around the bend as the spring and summer months creep in, and Merkel and his cohort of friends, family, and co-workers will once again dig their hands into the soil.
But how long he can keep the farm afloat is an ever-present question in Merkel's mind. A combination of the state's snail-paced roll-out of legal cannabis dispensaries, the high level of taxation on crops, costly cannabis testing and the entrance of multi-million-dollar corporations into the cannabis space has left the small farmer in crisis.
Merkel sunk about $400,000 into his cannabis operation and — two years since receiving his license to legally grow cannabis — has yet to turn a profit. Like dozens of other cannabis farmers in New York, he sees little means for survival beyond a state bailout.
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