Canada’s massive produce greenhouses are converting to cannabis

By Alicia Wallace, The Cannabist Staff

In a vast greenhouse that operates about 30 miles outside Vancouver, British Columbia, hundreds of thousands of plants yield an abundance of colorful tomatoes.

Come this time next year, the massive 1.1 million-square-foot facility will be outfitted for a different kind of harvest: marijuana.

Village Farms International Inc., an established provider of greenhouse-grown produce, is jumping into the cannabis business just as Canada closes in on national marijuana legalization.

The company will convert that 1.1 million-square-foot greenhouse — about the size of 19 football fields — to cannabis and earmark another 3.7 million square feet of greenhouse space for potential cannabis cultivation as part of a newly established joint venture with Emerald Health Therapeutics, a licensed Canadian medical cannabis producer.

The partnership represents a “transformational opportunity” for the company that distributes hydroponically grown tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and eggplants across…