Legalized use and growing plants will become legal soon in Canada.
Many corporations want to get in on the ground floor of a high profit cash crop but that will take zoning and millions of dollars for facilities.

The Regional District Okanagan Similkameen (RDOS) –  like its member municipalities –  wants those plants on industrial zoned land not farmland for obvious reasons – farmland should be utilized for food production .
The ALC allows for the production of plants on reserve land but most of the regional politicians want such land for the production of ground and tree crops.
Thursday  the RDOS held a public hearing for a bylaw allowing such industrial production in rural areas
A-Osoyoos,
C-Oliver,
D-Okanagan Falls,
E-Naramata and
F-West Bench.
Rural Areas in the Similkameen (Olalla, Cawston, Keremeos, Hedley and Princeton) not included in the bylaw.

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Sunniva Inc. is proposing two facilites – one on OIB land north of Oliver and the 2nd at the Weyerhauser site east of OK Falls. Sunniva is 740,000 square-foot greenhouse in OK Falls
After the public hearing Directors voted 15 to 3 to bring forward the regional bylaw that encourages the use of industrial land
not farm land.
Bob Daly, chair of the OK Falls Irrigation District, said he wasn’t for or against the proposed OK Falls grow-op, but said the RDOS may need to consider the effect the facility could have on water supply.
Area F director Michael Brydon said “we need to move quickly to protect ALR land,” adding that his impression is developers would rather build on industrial land where there’s often easier access to utilities.

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Previously on ODN – January 17, 2018
A Penticton winery owner who founded a medical marijuana company says he plans to open the largest medical cannabis production facility in B.C. near Oliver on Osoyoos Indian Band land at Senkulmen (north of Oliver)
Poplar Grove Winery owner Tony Holler founded Sunniva Inc. four years ago as he saw a business opportunity in the burgeoning cannabis industry. “It’s a high growth industry, it’s an exciting industry, and it’s an industry of the future,” Holler said. The 700,000-square-foot purpose-built greenhouse facilities will use state-of-the-art Dutch technologies.
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Dr. Anthony F. Holler, BSc’74, MD’79
Tony grew up in Summerland on the family’s farm which was predominantly apples but included soft fruits and pears. He studied sciences at Okanagan College and moved on to UBC where he received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a Medical degree.
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The total Sunniva Canada Campus is expected to produce 125,000 kg of premium medical cannabis a year and over 35,000 kg of trim used for extraction. If all goes as planned, it will be located on a 39-acre parcel of land in the industrial park north of Oliver. “That industrial park has all of the infrastructure there,” Holler said.
The $100-million facility will be constructed in two phases and would create up to 200 jobs. Holler says odour mitigation will prevent the smell of cannabis from spreading beyond the facility and it will include high-level security.