Are you a hemp farm co-op? Are you membership-based? Can we join your network?

Those are some of the questions we receive regularly so I thought I’d take you through some of my own thought processes that we worked through the last few years.

A cooperative, or co-op, is an organization owned and controlled by the people who use the products or services the businesses produce. Cooperatives differ from other forms of businesses because they operate more for the benefit of members, rather than to earn profits for investors.

“Okay, this is what we are” I declared.

Cooperative businesses can be as small as a community buying club or as large as a Fortune 500 company. People typically join a cooperative business to enjoy the benefits of group purchasing and pooled risk.

“Absolutely!”

Co-ops are organized to provide competition, improve bargaining power, reduce costs, expand new and existing market opportunities, improve product or service quality, and obtain unavailable products or services (products or services that profit-driven companies don’t offer because they may see them as unprofitable).

“Yep, that’s spot on”

However, it didn’t end there. Setting up boards and memberships and voting and taking minutes constantly, along with added admin costs makes an ‘officially registered” co-operative a lot more of a headache and Granjacia are about keeping things simple not complicated. We also work with small farmers not just large ones and extra costs and requirements is something that we try to remove, not add. So if this cooperative covers our ethos but not the bureaucracy, what do we call this mission of unity?

Hemp Association?

Having been president of a well known non-profit association for years we have some previous experience. It comes with many of the same cons as the co-op. More suited to fighting legislation in my opinion. Often ‘for profit’ associations will be charging fees to members that small startups find expensive and really it ends up funding a few well-paid individuals enjoying business lunches all day.

It becomes almost a business directory, listing hundreds of businesses paying but in reality it isn’t working for you in any measurable way. So there are a few things that we aren’t. How about telling you what we are?

Culture hub

Not a band from the 80’s fronted by Boy George, more a centralized hub that can exist largely apart from any particular business function, and simply be geared to maintaining a shared culture across a network of independent businesses, cooperatives or social enterprises, for instance through education, contacts sharing, convening or other forms of exchange and communication.

Such a centralised hub can preserve a sense of shared mission and help break down isolation between smaller independent projects. PROS: Maintains strong relative independence at the business level CONS: Needs to be based in a shared sense of strong value proposition. This central hub exists to facilitate interchange and a shared sense of social mission between disparate projects.

Now, this is closer. We want Spain to be a big player in the hemp space. I believe the best chance of achieving that, with genuine diversity, rather than a huge conglomerate is by working together. Creating protocols and loyalties to the mission, pooled knowledge, contacts, techniques, equipment sourcing, working in unity to build sustainably as a group; farmers growing, processors processing, extractors extracting, manufacturers manufacturing, buyers and sellers buying and selling.

Between our network, we work out who needs what help, who should invest when and where so that there are not 20 businesses all investing in the same things and leaving big holes that are not filled. It’s a logical approach.

We’ve been in the hemp industry and legal cannabis space at every stage the last 20 years, from being pioneers in the harvesting and processing of industrial hemp flowers to the first legal CBD products on retail shelves. It certainly hasn’t been a profitable or easy industry to work in for most of that time. But that time IS here now. We just need to keep building on the solid foundations we have and warmly inviting other business to be part of it.

“Hemp can save the planet”

A slogan shared for decades. Let’s not forget, whether your intention or not, you’re involved in a far bigger global concern, the actual health of the planet. There are very few better tools to repair our air and soil. Be proud of that fact and help make a real difference.

But it still costs money right?

Sure, business requires investment, always. But investment should be based around a few fundamental principles, to increase your efficiency, sustainability and profitability. Without these things then burning Euro notes and rain-dancing might as well be in your portfolio too. If you require our pricing structures, simply request it today