Tonnes of yearly cannabis growth is planned for Australia

All across Australia, more and more cannabis players are planting their feet (and soon other things) in the ground for what's aiming to be a revolution of the Australian marijuana industry. Million dollar companies are setting up shop and securing big parcels of land in various regions of the country including in New South Wales and southern Victoria. In particular, Nunyara Pty Ltd (not to be confused with Nunyara Aboriginal Health Clinic) has purchased a 20-hectare lot in the Northern Rivers district of NSW. To go along with their large foothold, they've lodged an application with the local government to build a world-class growing and cultivation facility. All up, the company paid around $2.6 million for what they hope to be a big pay off in the future. Additionally, Cann Group, one of the ASX's biggest cannabis stocks is planning a whopping $100 million growing facility on a 37,000 sqm area of land right next to Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. They're not the only pot players that are going to be calling Melbourne home -  Althea, an importer and producer of medicinal cannabis, will be forking out $11 million on a growing an extracting facility where it expects to produce around 3,000 kg cannabis each year. Regional Victoria is also getting its fair share of pot farms. Wonthaggi, a 2-hour drive south east of Melbourne, will be the home of a $3 million growing facility owned by MediPharm Labs, one of Canada's largest cannabis companies valued at over $300 million. It's planned to be a processing facility which will convert 150 tonnes of raw cannabis into 15 tonnes of oils for use in medicines. Warren Everitt, the Managing Director at MediPharm, says:

Because cannabis carries a stigma, everyone wants the facilities to be out of sight and out of mind.

The local Bass Coast council is also forcing the company to hurdle through a lot of red tape - demanding the company announce its cannabis intentions to thousands of local residents within a one-kilometre radius of the facility. "You only need four of them to object," Mr Everitt said. "We are months behind because of the red tape that gets rolled out for us." As of late January 2019, the Office of Drug Control had granted 46 licences to cultivate and grow cannabis, with another 15 granted for cannabis research. Ken Charteris, the group CEO of THC Global (one of the largest ASX-listed players in Australia), believes many of the companies with a licence will find it difficult to win real permits to actually run their facility:

Unless you have a permitted site to take it, you will have to destroy your crop.

THC Global is valued at around $60 million after picking up a processing facility LEO Pharma at a bargain price due to it being a surplus to their needs.