Hudson Cannabis, located at 67 Pine Wood Road, was co-founded by sisters Freya and Melanie Dobson and started as a hemp farm in 2017, with the farm growing through 2021.
The wholesale company sells its products directly to licensed dispensaries around the state, including Riverbend Dispensary on Warren Street in Hudson and Gotham.
Hudson Cannabis co-founder Freya Dobson said Thursday that tours of the farm began in 2018 and were open to the public for a fee.
When cannabis became legal in New York state in 2021, the farm focused on tours for people working in the cannabis industry.
“We realized that we can't really open[the tour]to the public, but we can open it up to people in the industry and people who already work in pharmacies that sell our products.” she said. “What better way to educate them than to take them to a farm?”
Dobson said the farm has hosted tours for the past three seasons, and Thursday's tour was the largest group to date.
“I think we had 60 or 65 people from all over New York state today,” she said.
Participants on Thursday's tour toured areas where Hudson Cannabis grows marijuana plants and dries and processes them.
It takes 14 days for the cannabis to dry, after which the flower must be cured and processed.
“That happens in staggered rotation,” Dobson said. “Processing is where the trimming happens, where the pre-rolls are made, and where everything gets packaged.”
From there, the flowers are sent to third-party labs across the state for testing and quality control. Products are tested for mold, bacteria, chemicals, and more.
“This is why legal cannabis is so important. Many people have no idea what they're smoking when they consider purchasing illegal cannabis,” she said. “You'll literally be breathing it in, and that's dangerous.”
Dobson said there are a limited number of labs in the state that can test farm products, which poses an additional challenge.
“They are backed up,” she said. “We cannot release the product until we have test results.”
Dobson said the company originally started growing hemp because of its positive environmental impact.
“Hemp is actually like a tree because it has a deep root system that sequesters carbon at a very fast rate,” she said. “It's also a bioremediator that cleanses the soil.”
Hudson Cannabis primarily grows cannabis used in CBD products, Dobson said.
“Honestly, hemp has been a really difficult market to break into,” she said. “It quickly became saturated. It was hard to create a brand and market it because there wasn't as much demand for it as there was for cannabis.”
Dobson said when marijuana became legal in 2021, the state was considering giving existing cannabis farmers permission to transition to adult-use cannabis cultivation.
“It was a natural transition for us,” she said. “They are very similar crops and are from the same family of plants. The only difference is that hemp has a THC content of less than 0.3% and adult-use cannabis has a THC content of more than 0.3%. ”
The cannabis growing season begins in May, and cannabis flower harvest begins in September and ends by the end of October.
The short growing season is one of the challenges facing Hudson Cannabis, Dobson said.
“This is the only point I scored,” she said. “Our biggest challenge right now is there's a lot of demand and not enough supply. We can't keep products on the shelves.”
Currently, the company grows approximately 3,950 cannabis plants on approximately one acre of land.
The farm is located on the 383-acre Old Mud Creek Farm, owned by Abby Rockefeller, Dobson said.
Dobson said Hudson Cannabis has about 80 employees and is an employee-owned company.
Dobson said Rockefeller is an investor in the company, owning about half of the company's stock, with the other half owned by 20 employees.
“After two years, you get the rights,” she said.
The company's mission to grow cannabis in a healthy, organic environment started with Dobson's father, she said.
“We believe consumer products produced on the farm should be grown on the farm in sunlight and organic, living soil,” Dobson said. “When consumers are having an experience, whether it's eating a salad or a burger, smoking a joint, drinking a glass of wine, they're having the best experience, because it's being done by real people. Because it comes from an authentic place where it was grown.'' The plants were grown with love and care. ”
Dobson's father moved to California as a teenager after studying organic farming at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Dobson said her father and first wife were given land in Hillsdale and hoped to become homesteaders.
“They were very rejecting society and social norms and wanted to change it,” she says. “They decided to homestead, build their own homes, grow all their own food and raise livestock.”
They learned of the difficulties of farming, and Dobson's father began selling marijuana to supplement his income.
“There was no farm-to-table movement that exists here now,” she said. “There weren't that many restaurants. My dad started growing marijuana and selling it because that was the way to make money. At the time it was crazy and super illegal, but my dad got arrested a lot. I got raided and it started with my dad.”
Participants on Thursday's tour also shared their thoughts on the experience.
Isamaa Rodriguez, a Brooklyn pharmacy employee, said the tour was informative.
“I thought it was a lot of fun,” she said. “I had never actually seen a plant (cannabis) before, so just seeing it was so beautiful. The process from start to finish was very thorough and really fun to watch.”
