Free Republic

Entry-level position can give preview of industry demands According to New Frontier Data, a national research firm, by 2020 the legal cannabis market will create more than a quarter of a million jobs. Comparable statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that will be more jobs than the manufacturing industry. If you want to be part of this industry but don’t know much about growing or selling, consider starting as a budtrimmer. This entry-level position in the growing and processing side of the industry provides a foot in the door for cannabis career opportunities. Budtrimmers are asked to...

If you consider buying a farm or you already have some field and want to use it for this purpose, you would need to know about 10 easiest goat breeds to raise. First of all, you need to know why to choose goats instead of cows, pigs, or sheep? They give the same product as these three breeds, but products of cows, pigs, and sheep are more in demand. Well, that is true, but, when you look at the numbers, you will see that raising goats is more profitable and better in every matter than keeping these three. First of...

Farmers markets offer great opportunities for farmers and other small businesses to connect with customers and make sales. But it’s not as easy as just reserving a booth and setting some products out on a table. Here are 25 tips to help you succeed when selling at farmers markets. Selling at Farmers Markets Visit Markets Beforehand One of the biggest factors in your farmers market success is the actual market. You need to find one that fits with what you want to accomplish. And the best way to make that determination is to go and see for yourself. Leigh Adcock,...

U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro barred Eric Parker from mentioning the First Amendment after he took the stand to testify in his own defense in a trial stemming from the 2014 Bunkerville standoff in which ranchers confronted Bureau of Land Management officers in a dispute over grazing rights. "Once a duly authorized law enforcement action is underway the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech no longer apply," Navarro ruled. "Allowing a jury to hear these words would only serve to undermine the respect for authority that is essential to an orderly enforcement of the decisions...

DALLAS (AP) - Drew Demler is digging in a box of dirt in the middle of Fair Park. The Dallas Morning News reports he is harvesting potatoes - big, small, misshapen, one that even looks like a snowman - in a hotter-than-deep-fried parking lot just outside the Cotton Bowl. "I think potatoes and onions are two of the most important crops that we grow," Demler, farm manager at Big Tex Urban Farms , says as he uses his bare hands to search for the tubers. "They're hearty and prolific, and their storage life is long."(continued)

Quitting finance to focus on marijuana sounds like it’s something that involves finding yourself by surfing and living in a beach hut in California. But with momentum building for the legalization of cannabis in the U.S. – 29 states and the District of Columbia have laws legalized marijuana in some form – finance professionals are increasingly viewing it as a big business opportunity. The number of jobs that the cannabis industry is creating continues to increase. New Frontier Data, a research and analytics firm, projects that the legal cannabis market will create more than 250m jobs by 2020 – more...

PUEBLO, Colo. (KKTV) - On Tuesday morning Doyen Elements officially broke ground on a 234-thousand square foot cannabis grow facility in Pueblo. It'll be located at 1900 Freeway Drive in Pueblo, which is the former Pepsi bottling facility. "We've taken the facility and we are retrofitting it into a 234,000 square foot grow facility that will be developed into three separate phases," said Geoff Thompson with Doyen Elements. "Phase one will take 9-11 months and then the next two phases through an 18 to 24 month period of time." Once construction is complete the entire facility will run 24 hours...

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A fertilizer company in southwest Indiana is moving forward with a $2.8 billion project with the help of state incentives and a new governor. Midwest Fertilizer Co. will begin construction on its Posey County manufacturing facility next year, the Evansville Courier & Press reported . Construction is projected to support more than 2,500 jobs. The state Economic Development Corp. has offered the company up to $2.9 million in conditional tax credits, up to $400,000 in training grants and up to $300,000 in conditional incentives. The performance-based incentives require the company to create jobs and invest in...

Zimbabwe receives $150 million in U.S. aid funding annually to combat food insecurity and support climate resilience programs for 2.1 million people. A narrow dirt road snakes along the banks of a small river and leads to the remote village of Birirano. Marked by baobab trees and drought-tolerent shrubs, this small community is sandwiched between desolate mountains in Zimbabwe’s eastern district of Chipinge. Far from the main highway, it is largely cut off from the rest of the country and the world. With limited livelihood possibilities, villagers here have long been locked in an unending cycle of poverty. Over the...

The cannabis industry could have a notable economic impact, if the U.S. federal government stays out of the way. Investors are always on the lookout for fast-growing industries, which means there's no surprise why marijuana stocks have been such strong performers over the past year. Far more pot stocks than not with a market cap of at least $200 million have doubled or tripled in value over the past year. Optimistic growth figures for the industry are seemingly everywhere. Aside from the fact that a record number of Americans surveyed by Gallup and CBS News want to see cannabis legalized...

A new bill introduced in New York City Council Thursday addresses the need for an urban agriculture plan that doesn’t fall through the cracks of the city’s zoning and building regulations, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bill, introduced by Councilman Rafael Espinal and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and assigned to the Land Use Committee, also raises the possibility of an office of urban agriculture. If a New York City farm bill seems surprising, you may also be surprised to know that NYC has the country’s largest urban agriculture system, including community gardens, rooftop farms and greenhouses. The city’s...

A former Pepsi factory that sat vacant for a decade is being reincarnated as an indoor marijuana grow — one of the largest in the pot-friendly state of Colorado. Doyen Elements, a holding company that leases real estate properties out to legal cannabis companies, bought an old bottling plant in Pueblo County. Upon completion in 2019, the facility could potentially produce up to 70,000 pounds of marijuana flower a year. According to a recent report in Forbes, the company is one of a growing number of real estate investment firms that are making money in legal weed without actually touching...

HOUSTON, TEXAS: Anand Mahindra-led Mahindra group will double the number of American employees at its North American farm equipment business, the move coming at a time when President Donald Trump has asked companies to increasingly hire locals to manage business in the US. Mahindra USA (MUSA), that manages the group's tractor and farm utility vehicles (UTVs) business, is also considering setting up a factory in America in line with the expansion of business, which has grown nearly five-fold over the last few years. MUSA recorded revenues of $600 million last year as it sold 32,000 units, with tractors accounting for...

A vacant dairy plant in Batavia is being re-purposed and will result in millions of dollars of investment in that facility and more than 200 jobs. That announcement was made by Governor Andrew Cuomo Tuesday when he visited the Genesee Valley Agri-Business Park. The dairy company HP Hood is buying the plant previously operated by the Muller-Quaker venture a couple of years ago, and Hood will use the plant to make extended shelf-life dairy products. Cuomo credits state and Genesee County economic development officials for being persistent in trying to find a new use for the plant. “They have taken...

Last month I gave the keynote address at the Cannabis World Congress Business Expo in New York City. CWCBExpo is the trade show for the cannabis industry. I had the pleasure of meeting thousands of like-minded cannabis activists, and the experience was truly refreshing and inspiring on many levels. I learned firsthand that those in the legal cannabis industry — whether they're growing hemp, medical marijuana or recreational marijuana in Colorado or California or Oregon or wherever — have formed a united front. Everyone at the convention was looking to work together to come up with solutions on how to...

If we built farms in space, they'd look nothing like the vast wheat fields of Kansas. But they just might look something like urban farms being used today—modular closed-loop hydroponic farms, actually. These compact, efficient grow houses could be the life-giving answer to keeping astronauts fed, a solution The Martian's Mark Watney could only dream of. The idea is less science fiction than you might think, too. Freight Farms, based in Boston, is trying to revolutionize the global food system with its Leafy Green Machines. These shipping containers filled with racks of planted crops, grow lights, and environmental control systems...

As canna-business strategist Elise McRoberts walked across an animal skin rug and into the living room of a Pacific Heights home for the recent San Francisco launch of Beboe, an upscale cannabis brand from Los Angeles, she assumed she would see the usual faces on the marijuana circuit — growers, dispensary owners and cannabis chefs. Instead, the party was a cross-pollination of the worlds of high society, Silicon Valley, politics, fashion and design: industrial designer Yves Béhar, former Mayor Willie Brown, who carried decriminalization bills in the state assembly in the 1970s, philanthropists Katie and Todd Traina, boutique owner Emily...

Hampton Creek, a plant-based food startup headquartered in San Francisco, recently announced that it will be moving into the lab-grown meat industry, and plans to have its clean meat products on shelves as soon as 2018. According to Spanish tech site ABC.es, Hampton Creek is considering using 3D printing to realize this goal. Since its founding in 2011 by Josh Balk and Joshua Tetrick (the company’s current CEO), Hampton Creek has gained a lot of attention for its plant-based food products—both good and bad. On the good side, the company has been recognized as a unicorn startup and has done...

Gov. Tom Wolf announced today that the Tyson Foods Distribution Center will expand in Schuylkill County at Highridge Business Park and create 114 new, full-time jobs. “I’m proud to announce that Tyson Foods will expand and create 114 family-sustaining jobs in Schuylkill County,” Wolf said in a presss release. “The company is investing heavily in its future in Pennsylvania with its own $59.7 million capital investment. The I-81 corridor has become an extremely attractive location for food processors, and I applaud Tyson Foods for choosing to grow right here in Pennsylvania.” Tyson Foods plans to add 164,000 square feet to...

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 93, on Friday told unemployed youths to "go and herd cattle" in the rural areas amid a critical shortage of jobs in the southern African country. During his election campaign of the 2013 polls, Mugabe promised Zimbabweans that his government would create more than 2.2 million jobs. However, latest statistics indicated that Zimbabwe had a formal unemployment rate of around 80%. Addressing his supporters at a rally at Mucheke Stadium in Masvingo, Mugabe said Zimbabwean youths who had no jobs should look for ideas so that they became entrepreneurs. “We always hear youths from the (opposition...