While Canada’s licensed cannabis producers are in a frenzy of deal-making, jockeying to take control of rivals and massive greenhouses ahead of legalization, cannabis entrepreneurs like Kelly Coulter are operating at a different pace. This spring, she leased two acres of farmland in Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley with several other women and intends to launch an environmentally sustainable market garden and cannabis operation called Slo Farms.

“We will be applying for a micro licence and our intention is to be a small and slow cannabis farm,” says Ms. Coulter. “I think there is a real opportunity there for small independents.”

Last November, Health Canada said the upcoming legalization of recreational marijuana would include a category of licence aimed at allowing small producers into the legal market. Under proposed regulations, a micro-cultivation licence would permit a company to have a plant canopy of 200 square metres. Security regulations are expected to be lighter than those faced by the licensed producers (LPs) currently authorized to grow for medical users, as well as future standard recreational licence holders. (Current LPs are expected to be automatically licensed to produce and sell to the recreational market in the new system.)