Cannabis Farmers and Neighbors Reach a Plan of By Peter Dugré Cannabis farmers and their one-time foes signed an historic agreement in 2021 that outlines how to farm cannabis in a way that’s aligned with the Community of Carpinteria. The agreement was brokered between CARP Growers, the local farmers group, and the Santa Barbara Coalition for Responsible Cannabis, the watchdog group that traditionally has advocated for Santa Barbara County to enforce even tighter rules on the new industry. The private
Peace
agreement took nearly a year to finalize and binds 10 cannabis farm operators at 23 properties to new communitybased standards of excellence. What’s in the agreement It’s all about fixing odor through a community partnership built on transparency and accountability. The Coalition historically appealed all cannabis farm permits in Carpinteria Valley but now will support CARP Growers member farms who have signed on to follow enhanced community standards laid out in the agreement. Cannabis farmers now work in lockstep with the Coalition on a Work Plan that includes a commitment to advancing odor control technology, installing a network of weather stations to identify likely odor sources and launching a platform for community odor incident reporting and response. The ultimate goal for each side is to have no cannabis nuisance odors in the valley and to get there from a foundation of science. Cannabis farmers continue to invest millions of dollars in new odor abatement technology and into studying the anatomy of cannabis odor in a way that leads to better odor control techniques. Why it’s important Cannabis became legal in California—the world’s biggest market— in 2016, but five years later, some of the state’s most productive cannabis companies still are trying to get land use entitlements to legally grow cannabis in Santa Barbara County. Continued on Page 13
Winter 2021 Cannabis by the Sea
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