Three more pot cultivation licenses issued on LI

Oregon Road Organics is days away from planting its first cannabis crop, now that state regulators have given the North Fork farm the green light. 

The state Cannabis Control Board, which oversees cannabis and hemp policy, issued "conditional" cultivation licenses to three local businesses this week, including the two business partners behind Oregon Road Organics and Island Grow, LLC. A total of seven organizations on the Island are now licensed to grow marijuana for the general market.

"Our seeds are on the way," said Jonathan Fabb, who is licensed through WJF Farms LLC, and operates Oregon Road Organics with Jennifer Digney-Bihm, who is licensed separately. "We're going to get started right away because we have the season upon us."

The "conditional" license is only available to farmers who have grown hemp, which comes from the same species as marijuana, but contains less of the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) compound that produces a high. The credential allows businesses to grow cannabis for two years and manufacture and distribute the flower — which is dense with THC — until June 2023.

Fabb and Digney-Bihm said they'll take a slow, deliberate approach to marijuana after seeing the CBD industry become very saturated. The cannabidiol (CBD) compound is derived from hemp and, anecdotally, has been found to have health and wellness benefits. 

Fabb and Digney-Bihm run a construction company and decided to start farming in Cutchogue in 2019. They initially planned to solely grow organic hemp, Fabb said. But when COVID struck, they got nervous about relying on one product and started growing organic vegetables, such as sweet corn, radishes and tomatoes.

"The hemp market got very soft," Fabb said, noting that they decreased their volume of hemp. "People thought it was like the gold rush … We were lucky enough to kind of keep our heads in the game."

The pair manufacture products for their Nofo CBD line, which incorporates honey from their own hives. Digney-Bihm said these items  are used by people with cancer, Parkinson's disease and psoriasis.

"It's helped so many people," Digney-Bihm said.

She and Fabb start growing plants inside and then move them outdoors. During the busy summer months, 20 people work for their agricultural businesses, they said. That drops to about five during slower periods. 

Newsday couldn't reach Island Grow, LLC, which is located in Suffolk County, according to state regulators.

The state is initially limiting each licensee to one-acre of cannabis outdoors or a half-acre indoors, said Rob Carpenter, director of the Long Island Farm Bureau, an agricultural trade group. Suffolk County has about 35,000 acres used for farming, he said. The bulk of this is located outside, but greenhouses tend to have particularly high-value products like flowers and lettuce.

Farmers looking to cultivate cannabis year-round will have to estimate whether they can make more money with cannabis than some of these high-grossing plants, Carpenter said. 

"We still don't know what the legal demand is going to be for [cannabis]," Carpenter said. "It's going to be determined by the free market." 

By Sarina Trangle

sarina.trangle@newsday.comSarinaTrangle

Sarina Trangle covers affordability and cost of living issues and other business topics. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at amNewYork.