Yesterday, California’s Bloom Farms announced a plan to erase gender disparity among its lists of cannabis producers, pledging to source half of its marijuana supply from woman farmers by the end of 2020. The move, announced in a Nov. 13 statement, comes in response to growing concerns that the cannabis industry is not taking the necessary steps needed to become gender equitable.
Business analyses show an increasingly dramatic divide between men and women in terms of who’s making money off of legal weed. One study by Marijuana Business Daily found that the percentage of women at the executive level in the cannabis industry fell from 36 percent in 2015 to 27 percent in 2017. Recent revelations also show that the largest North American marijuana companies are dominated by men. Furthermore, the appearance of high profile sexual misconduct allegations have called into question the commitment of certain industry leaders support of female leadership.
“We’ve seen increasing sexism, sexual misconduct, and discrimination in the industry and there should be no place for that kind of behavior,” said Michael Ray, Bloom Farms’ CEO, in an AP press release. “Bloom Farms wants to ensure an opportunity gap isn’t created for talented and diverse business owners who have been essential to the California cannabis community for many years.”
The statement goes on to say that Bloom is in the process of identifying and securing supply agreements with a number of California cannabis farms owned or operated by women. The company intends to introduce the gender equity goal to its operations in Nevada and other states, too. No data has been released on the current breakdown of gender among its cannabis suppliers.
This is not the first time Bloom Farms