Annie Davis
VP of Marketing
Flow Cannabis Co.
Redwood Valley, CA
What is it about the Emerald Triangle that makes it so perfect for cannabis farming? Is it something about the way cool morning fog flows over its hills? Or how the heat of its days warms the soil to ripeness? Or is it how the nights’ wide carpet of stars turns across the sky?
In a word, yes.
There’s also a rich human narrative to this special tri-county area that allows its cannabis to flourish as a superior reflection of a plant so tied to mankind’s evolution that our bodies contain thousands of receptors specific to it.
When the chaos of the 1960s drove young people away from the cities, many of them came to the hills of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties. They raised goats and barns and babies and tomatoes, and they grew their own cannabis among blackberry rows and under redwoods, keeping production hidden away from law enforcement as the failed War on Drugs raged around them.
Emerald Triangle farmers grew their secret crops outside, in the sun, but hid them. For reasons I mostly can’t fathom, many growers still hide this remarkable plant indoors, making it the only agricultural product I can think of that is regularly produced under artificial lights with electric fans and air conditioning — all of which exact a tremendous carbon toll.
In fact, according to New Frontier Data, indoor cannabis cultivation sites produce 25 times more carbon than outdoor grows and are 70 times more energy-intensive than commercial office buildings. A 2021 study from Colorado State University recently published in the journal Nature Sustainability estimates that growing a mere ounce of cannabis indoors can have the same environmental impact as burning seven to 16 gallons of gas.
Simply put, indoor cannabis farming comes at an unacceptable cost when Northern California provides perhaps the world’s best climate, latitude and sky for its outdoor production using just water.
Championing legacy, sungrown cannabis farmers and providing them a supply chain through which they can legally sell their harvest is core to what we do at Flow Cannabis Co. Based in the Emerald Triangle, we work with a cohort of sungrown farmers to develop the highest quality cannabis flower possible and get it to market in a compliant and safe manner, turning what had been an illegal activity into a safe and admirable way to support one’s family through farming.
As cannabis quickly becomes an industry, it’s my honor to support farmers who grow their flower as it has for millennia, helping them get it to market and spreading sungrown’s rich entourage effect to new consumers every day. We’re proud to call it the “California Way” — but I encourage you to let it be your way, too.
Annie Davis is the vice president of marketing for Flow Cannabis and a founding member of the Sustainable Cannabis Coalition. Prior to joining Flow Cannabis, she served as the vice president of marketing and sales for Care By Design and through her strategy consultancy, Growing Impact, she has helped numerous California cannabis brands with marketing, business development and sales strategy.