Farmers Market regular gets one of state’s first cannabis grow licenses

Last month, New York’s Cannabis Control Board approved the state’s first round of licenses to grow adult-use recreational marijuana, with 52 licenses issued in total. Among them was Main Street Farms, a Cortland-based business that has a well-established presence at the Ithaca Farmers Market.

All businesses that received licenses were already in the business of growing hemp for cannabidiol, better known as CBD, which has been used to help with a variety of medical conditions like anxiety and muscle pain without causing the usual “high” associated with marijuana.

Now, with these new licenses, these businesses will be able to grow marijuana specifically for the purpose of producing products containing tetrahydrocannabinol, better known as THC, the compound that gives marijuana users that “high.”

Main Street Farms was founded about 10 years ago by Allan Gandelman and Bob Cat and began as an organic vegetable farm. In 2017, Gandelman founded New York Hemp Oil, a vertically integrated organic hemp company, with co-founder Karli Miller-Hornick. New York Hemp Oil uses the farms at Main Street Farms to grow its products, which — with this new license — will be split into two brands: Head and Heal, dedicated to THC and CBD wellness products, and Florist Farms, dedicated to THC and CBD recreational products.

“They started as just a small backyard aquaponics farm where they raised tilapia and greens and, over the years, expanded into quite a large farm operation where we grow veggies for the Syracuse and Ithaca farmers markets,” Miller-Hornick said. “And we have a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture program. So, we still do all of that and all the veggies.”

Miller-Hornick explained why the business decided to expand in 2017.

“In 2017, Allan, my business partner, got Lyme disease, and he was recommended to start taking cannabis oil to help,” she said. “But the cannabis oil he was taking was rich in THC. And he was having a hard time running the farm and running the business high. And since he was looking for an alternative, somebody sent him a package of CBD. And within a few weeks, the symptoms had really improved.”

Coincidentally, that summer, New York started issuing its first licenses for hemp growers, so given Gandelman’s experience, Main Street Farms decided to apply.

“We own [one of] the first licenses to both grow and extract CBD in New York state,” Miller-Hornick said. “That was back in 2017. At the time, I didn’t even know what CBD was. It wasn’t really mainstream. It wasn’t as in every store that you went to. So, we thought it was just going to be this small thing that we did on the side, maybe sell the CBD at the farmers markets, but then the CBD trend and craze kind of took over in this country, and it became much bigger thing than we had expected.”

By 2018, Main Street Farms started selling CBD products, including at the Ithaca Farmers Market, which it had recently joined. The business became an official market member about two years ago, Miller-Hornick said.

Like for many others, the pandemic was initially very challenging for Main Street Farms, Miller-Hornick said.

“We saw farmers market sales drop by about 75% through the pandemic, especially in Ithaca,” she said. “Ithaca really decided to have some pretty strong restrictions as a farmers market compared to other cities. So, we took a big hit at the farmers market, but that has mostly rebounded for now. But it was challenging.”

Prior to the pandemic, Main Street Farms was focusing on getting its CBD products into retail stores, but once the pandemic hit, retail stores were mostly focused on coping with their own challenges.

“So, we had to change our strategy and kind of do a 180 pivot away from retail and focus more on our direct to consumer online business,” Miller-Hornick said. “So, it was a challenge, but it all worked out. We actually were really nervous that CBD was seen as a luxury product for people, so [due to the pandemic], they wouldn’t be buying from us anymore, but sales almost doubled within the first week of COVID.”

Based on the business’s history, it’s no wonder Main Street Farms was grateful to see that New York had approved recreational use of marijuana last year.

“Allan is the president of the New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association,” Miller-Hornick said. “He started that back probably back in 2017. Now, it has over 350 members. And that whole association has been working very hard for New York state legalization, creating an equitable industry, and so, it wasn’t a surprise to us that legalization was coming. However, I think that because of the change in governors, I don’t think Cuomo really would have done much as far as legalization. We just kind of lucked out with Kathy Hochul.”

Miller-Hornick and her team are glad to be among the first to receive the licenses, she said. As she explained, hemp “is not the easiest crop to grow,” and due to the nature of the hemp industry, it wasn’t a very profitable crop either.

“The price of hemp kind of overnight dropped from $40 a pound to $1 a pound if you could even find a buyer,” she said. “So, cannabis is exciting because I don’t think that will happen in the same way, at least not as quickly. We’ve seen it happen in other states with prices dropping, but New York is trying to be quite careful about not causing an oversupply issue, which is what happened with hemp here. And that’s what’s happened in other states with cannabis. They just gave out too many licenses.”

To accommodate this new business venture, Main Street Farms is expecting to hire about 50 more employees within the next year, essentially doubling the size of its workforce.

As far as what this new venture will entail, Miller-Hornick said there’s still a lot of details that are up in the air right now, especially because they and others with these licenses will be growing marijuana outdoors.

“It’ll really depend on what the season is like and the quality of the flower,” she said. “We really have to kind of wait and see. But we’re currently making, with Head and Heal, we have tinctures and we have gummies. We have smokable flower, so we’ll probably follow along with similar products as well as things like vape cartridges, other forms of concentrates that we do extraction for.”

So far, the state has not released applications for dispensary licenses for marijuana, and even when that happens, New York won’t allow growers and processors to also own a dispensary. That means that even if Main Street Farms had THC products available right now, there is nowhere to sell them. As such, Miller-Hornick is hoping that, by the time they finish preparing their product, there will be stores to sell it in.

“There’s a lot that needs to happen in order for dispensaries to open up, so we’re kind of just hoping and praying that we can get that done fast enough that dispensaries are ready this fall or maybe winter, at least some of them, to open up so that we can actually sell our products,” Miller-Hornick said.

Harvest is expected in early fall, and from there, “there’s a long process of curing the cannabis and extracting the cannabis” for products, Miller-Hornick said.

For more information about Main Street Farms, visit its website at mainstreetfarms.com. To learn more about its cannabis-focused work, visit New York Hemp Oil at newyorkhempoil.com, Head and Heal at headandheal.com and Florist Farms at floristfarms.com.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@VizellaMedia.com.