Graduates started a cannabis business

By Juan Carlos Monzón – Communications Advisory Office

When Jaime was working for the Ministry of Justice in 2018, conducting audits of agribusinesses that had been granted licenses to cultivate medicinal cannabis—commonly known as marijuana—he realized, as he traveled from region to region, that there was a lot of misinformation among them. At that time, the legislation was new and not everyone was familiar with it.

It was then that, with his entrepreneurial vision, he realized there was a business opportunity there.

“I didn’t hesitate and resigned, and I told my friend and partner David, who is also a graduate of UCundinamarca, that we should found a company to advise people interested in obtaining a good practices registration license as producers from the ICA on regulatory and legal matters, and that we should also cover the technical aspects, for example, telling a client who wants to cultivate cannabis to generate extracts such as oils, the efficient and effective way to get the most out of the plants. That’s how Professional Growers Cannabis Business Consultants was born in 2019.”.

And yes, he was right, as his business acumen has yielded significant profits, and today the company is thriving. This sector has grown exponentially, and the figures confirm it. According to DANE (Colombia's National Administrative Department of Statistics), from January to May 2021, Colombia exported $2.2 million worth of medicinal cannabis, surpassing the figures for the same period in 2020 with an increase of $0.61 million. The main buyers were the United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel.

“We’ve done quite well. We’re working with thirty-one large companies, and thanks to that serious work, we were the first to bring seeds to the United Kingdom through a company that hired us for that purpose. We also did the same with Ecuador and Uruguay in a market that we’ve only been in for eight years.”.

But that's not all their company's service portfolio offers. “We also teach diploma courses on this topic at universities. We've already done so at the National University and other educational institutions because there's immense interest, since Colombia is one of the pioneering countries in legislation on this matter in Latin America. Likewise, we conduct agronomic evaluation tests, which involve registering plant material for companies, with a seed breeder, so that these companies have their own material and can use it to supply themselves with more seeds for cultivation. In all these processes, we compete a lot with Europe. Now we just need the regulation of recreational use.”.

His entrepreneurial spirit has led him in recent months to cultivate this plant through another company he created called Health Crop SAS. “In Fusagasugá, we are dedicated to the production of psychoactive cannabis seed source with all the technical specifications required by Decree 811 of 2021, which established a new roadmap for the use and commercialization of this plant.”

This legal framework allows him to have a clear vision for the future of his business. “I see my two companies by 2023 selling plant clones to replicate them below 1,800 meters in the lower Andean region of departments such as Cundinamarca, Antioquia, and the Caribbean region.”.

And he has good reason to be optimistic, since, according to ProColombia, cannabis exports by 2030 could reach 1.733 billion dollars, a figure that would far exceed those of flowers, which have always represented an important source of foreign exchange for the country.

Finally, from his university, which shaped him for life, democratic values, and freedom, he highlights the entrepreneurial spirit that his professors always instilled in him and his partner in the various multidimensional fields of learning in Fusagasugá. “They always told us not to get stuck as employees, but to go out and create businesses, and that’s what we did.”.

If you would like to learn more about this venture, click here.

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